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Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux?
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "Mark Golden, a reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, tried to switch from Windows to Linux, and found it too complex for his liking. He writes: 'For me, though, using the Linux systems didn't make sense. I often send documents and spreadsheets between my home PC and the one at work, which uses Microsoft Office. And the files are sometimes complex. Meanwhile, for both personal and professional computer use, I want access to all multimedia functions. While solutions may exist to almost every problem I encountered, I was willing to invest only a limited amount of time as a system administrator. Claims by some Linux publishers that anybody can easily switch to Linux from Windows seem totally oversold.'"
Oh well, maybe in "another five years..."
But we're getting there.
I just ran the Ubuntu live CD which didn't want to give me a higher screen resolution than 1024 by 768 and didn't get the network running. :-( Such things really need to be resolved, because even if _I_, in discussion with others, would be able to resolve all problems, my grandparents surely wouldn't.
Swedish plasma phys. PhD student; MSc EE; knows maths, programming, electronics; finance interest; seeks opportunities
As a guy who is doing the same thing he is, trying to drop Windows from my everyday computing, I feel his pain. While editing config files itself isn't too hard, knowing what config file to edit and when, and how to edit it is very difficult for a newbie.
Did this man do any searches for Linux on Vaios? A lot of laptops have special sites out there that aim to make the transition easy for users
Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't try Mandrake/Mandriva for his laptop. I found that one to be the most friendly for my Dell back in college but perhaps things have changed? I think the users just have to have the patience to go out there and find the multimedia programs. They do exist, you know. I don't think that these claims have been made. I've seen publishers encourage it but I haven't seen a marketing push to claim anyone can do it. Some people don't want to climb more than one learning curve in their life. Those are the people that can't make the switch.
My work here is dung.
The person couldn't be bothered learning how to use another system after investing a large amount of time in Windows. I see it all the time. But perhaps what most gets me down is the fact that I go to my local Uni and see overseas students who have had little experience with a computer who say that they struggled harder with Windows than they did with learning Linux and both systems took the same amount of time to learn.
This only proves that those who can't make the switch perhaps can't be bothered or just plain can't do it. And if I had an employee in either camp, I'd send them packing. Not being bothered isn't a legit excuse and not being able to do something just means more training or they are incapable of doing their job - which really isn't the problem for the majority of people, which leaves us with the fact they can't be bothered.
Lazy user syndrome.
I always wondered where this setting was...
The question came up when I decided that my six-year-old version of Microsoft Corp.'s Windows operating system had to be replaced.
Stupid. Why did it have to be replaced? Hmmmn, I guess his story needed a setup!
Anyway, the review was reasonable - summary: linux is fine if you just want to surf & email, but no good if you need to interoperate with Microsoft Office users (particularly complicated documents) or use a good deal of multimedia.
The second issue is somewhere that the linux community really need to be paying attention to at the moment.
There is no technical problem here, the problem is software patents. Everyone needs to:
1) Attempt to revoke (or prevent coming into existance) patent laws, through writing to your lawmakers / voting / grassroots activism.
2) Write to companies with software patent portfolios that you're going to boycott their products & agitate for your community to do the same.
Multimedia support is a huge gaping hole in the linux desktop - we need non-technical action to fix it (and this is something all the non-programmers who want to help out can do.)
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I could see how it'd be difficult for him to invest the time it takes to set up, since I'd bet the clock on his VCR has been blinking "12:00" for 20 years.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I would have to agree with him. I've used Linux before but there are just some things that you can't do with it compared to Windows. It reminds me of a joke that I'm sure most of you heard: "Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was twice as fast, twice as easy to drive-but would only run on 5 percent of the roads."
Looking at this another way, could an "ordinary PC user" install Windows on a PC, having never used Windows before?
He mentions Apple problems, specifically Quicktime and iTunes / iPod. I don't think it is fair to lay the blame for these problems at door of Linux.
Given half a chance, I'm sure there are countless people waiting to get to work on making the iPod work 'straight out of the box' with Linux.
But Apple won't allow that, and thus we're talking about the DMCA before we can even start making things work. I know there are a lot of self-confessed OSS and Apple fans out there, so you tell me, why won't Apple support Linux?
While it is true that some multi-media content is a PITA on Linux, this is hardly the fault of open source but more a symptom of a lack of usable standards in the industry.
I have been using Linux exclusively as my desktop, and when I have to use Windows I feel I am in a prison cell. Things that are easy in Linux are painfully difficult in Windows, and things that are easy in Windows, can often be difficult on Linux.
However, articles never focus on the difficulties of Windows, only the problems with the easy things on Windows being difficult on Linux. Why not take all the time users spend updating McAffee and other anti-virus software and learn Linux? Why not take the time users have to reboot, and learn Linux. And so on.
A reporter reports that Linux is *too complex* to use.
Sounds like the same story from the paid off *survey houses*.
Move on, nothing to see here.....
I had been using SimplyMEPIS for nearly a year now, and installed it on several other peoples machines who were tired of the getting a DWI [Daily Windows Issues]. But I still have to switch to 'dohze to do some specific GIS mapping work and that is all, no office, no DRM, and I'm very productive and happy
--WAP3
From TFA:
"Meanwhile, for both personal and professional computer use, I want access to all multimedia functions. While solutions may exist to almost every problem I encountered, I was willing to invest only a limited amount of time as a system administrator."
And therein lies the real problem. Its not that you can't get these things working--and its not that they aren't fairly easy to get working (My Ubuntu desktop took about 5 minutes to get all multimedia enabled to play on it with very little knowledge of Ubuntu, Synaptic, or the apt system)--to be 100% fair, this is a whole lot easier than scouring the internet for random, obscure codecs that people like to use. So how is it "too difficult?"
Simply put, the issue is not one of how much administration time people are willing to put in; its about the fact that under windows, they've forgotten about the administration tasks they've either a) already done or b) done so many times on new machines that they just don't notice it and its just become part of the routine for them. It's about not wanting to learn how to do it differently when they already know how to make it work one way. It's back to the original premise as to WHY users don't want to switch from windows to *nix--its not that the system is harder; its just different.
With the exception of there being more "off the shelf software available" I've found that Windows users also flounder if you stick them in front of OSX. Does that mean OSX is difficult to use or immature? Of course not, but it is definitely different than windows and there's a non-trivial learning curve before you start to feel comfortable.
Cheers,
Update them? Most day to day Linux users update quite infrequently. Even the more frequent updaters are only on a similar rhythm to those who follow Windows Update. And there are people like me on Slackware who only upgrade every 6 - 9 months.
And as for Linux not being for work... loads of us spend huge amounts of time programming. Sure, inital setup can be difficult, but don't overlook the motivation.
Its just more selective about who its friends are..
the main problem is that Excel doesn't run on Linux.
O rly?
Yes, there are clones that emulate part of the functionality. Unfortunately, in the real world that is not close enough.
Would "close enough" require the ability to run VBScript macros, even those that reference ActiveX controls, which are designed exclusively for Microsoft Windows?
I would be interested to see just how easy the 'average' finds the switch to a Mac from Windows and how long it took to achieve the same level of productivity.
You are never going to get people to switch when they don't want to spend time learing how to do things diferently.
Save the DOS prompt: It's an endangered species!
...is that the total of all the efforts put into GNU/Linux is spread so thinly over several hundred distro's. If there were say half a dozen big ones then it would really move ahead. Doing anything in Linux is easy, but only after you have forgotten how hard it was to get to the point that it felt easy.
"When life gives you lemons, don't make lemonade. Make life take the lemons back!" -- Cave Johnson
Linux was started in 1991 by a Finnish student, Linus Torvalds, who wanted to modify the Unix operating system to work on his PC. (Unix was a text-driven operating system running on big mainframe computers that could handle various tasks and users simultaneously.) The task proved too much for one person, so Mr. Torvalds asked for help from programmers around the world in a posting on a Web bulletin board -- and the Linux movement was born. As if to say Open Source programming started with Linux.
Linux is not a drop-in windows replacement. It is not supposed to work like windows.
It is not supposed to route around basic, essential knowledge required to operate a computer like windows does.
Also the claim that anybody can switch from Linux to windows is true. But I don't think it means what you think it means. It doesn't mean that you don't have to "unlearn" the windows way of doing things or that you're not required to learn how to operate Linux properly.
"While solutions may exist to almost every problem I encountered, I was willing to invest only a limited amount of time as a system administrator."
Dear journalist, please continue using your tricicle then on your way to work, because obviously a car requires more expertise and attention. Obviously it is not ready for most people.
P.S.: I talk about Linux, where I obviously mean some distribution of Linux. Also the car analogy is flawed as I spend much less time administrating my debian desktop I'm writing this post from as I'd spend with fighting windows to do what I want. This installation is over 4 years old and absolutely tweaked for my needs.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
If you use software and applications that only run on one OS, switching may be a little rough. This applies when switching from one OS to another regardless of the source and destination or even switching applications on the same OS. If I used Corel Draw/Photo for years and suddenly I have to switch to Adobe Photoshop, I am going to have problems. The quality or capabilities of Photoshop itself is not the problem, the fact that it is not quite the same as Corel and it has problems opening some of my complex documents is the issue.
When switching to Linux, the applications and the OS are not the problem, the quality is outstanding and the system os just as capable. The fact they are not exactly what you used in the past is.
"I wonder how much more time he will be willing to spend admining his box once it is rooted by malware and his bank accounts are periodically cleaned out?" The funny thing is, as an intelligent Windows user, I've never had that happen. I tried Ubuntu, Mandriva and Knoppix (install from live CD) and none of them wanted to get my Dell XPS 400's network working right. Also, none of them configured x properly for my PCIe 6800. For reason's like that, I gave up on Linux. I had ubuntu working fine on my 1 Ghz Compaq Armada. However it took ~5 minutes to boot. My Dell boots in 30 seconds and returns from hibernate in 10 seconds. I know that has a lot to do with hardware (7200 rpm sata hdd vs 4200 rpm laptop drive) however it also has a lot to do with the OSes respectivly. I can't have 5 minute booting times on a laptop which is turned on and off 10 times a day. The desktop isn't such a problem as I leave it on for weeks on end. But it's the Dell desktop that I couldn't get working right. On a side note: I guess that's what I get for buying a Dell.
For readers of Slashdot, using Linux probably seems a trivial task. But for the millions of PC users out there who have been using Windows for years, switching to Linux is a serious investment in time and learning. Put simply, in Windows, everything works out of the box in 99.999% of the cases. In the case of Linux, there is *always* some modicum of configuration needed. There's no distro of Linux I know of that plays DVDs and MP3s out of the box, simply due to the licensing issues that Windows has covered. And *everyone* listens to music on their PC, right? (I know, I know, Windows doesn't play DVDs either. But it's a lot easier to set that up in Windows.)
Once a company steps up and licenses some software, and puts together a commercial distro of Linux that works out of the box in the same ballpark as Windows, then it will have a fighting chance at winning people over. Then the only problems will be the cost - because it won't be Free Software - and convincing people that they need to learn a completely new GUI.
Best of luck.
Yes, ordinary users can ditch Windows for Linux with ease. An "ordinary" user can just browse the web, use email, write documents, edit photographs and play multi-media. There are no problems doing all of these things on Linux, and you get the extra bonus of not having to worry about spyware, trojans, adware, viruses, etc, etc...
then i got an old laptop and put Ubuntu on it, which she then proceeded to hog for months, and now her Win2k PC is complaining that "no operating system is present" she wants to buy a laptop and get me to put Ubuntu on it.
The point is i have constantly been tinkering with Ubuntu and even as a techie person there has been a learning curve for administration of linux rather than windows, but for someone who just wants to browse the web and chat on messenger Gnome is no different to windows, it has no viruses and it looks nicer.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
Ordinary covers a wide range, but I'll bet lots of /.ers will equate ordinary with their own level of technical expertise. (So we'll see a lot of Nick Barnes comments.) That's too deep for a lot of people.
The reality is that Linux has to be as easy as Windows, maybe easier to overcome the natural barriers to switching. (OK, maybe MS Monopoly isn't a "natural" barrier; I meant the natural resistance in most people's minds to change of any kind.)
...why you are doing it the geek way and editing conf files manually, instead of changing the settings through the GUI?
Would you use regedit or control panel to change the same settings on Windows?
Ok, lousy comparison, I know, most settings on Windows don't have a control panel checkbox, but can ONLY be changed with regedit. Although TweakUI does help with a few of them, but it still doesn't get near the number of settings directly available under Linux.
Most ordinary PC users might be able to install some Linux distro or another. That's not even the issue. Why should they? More than that, I believe that ordinary PC users don't know anything about Linux other than it exists. Sure, it's great, it can do anything a PC can do only free, but there's no really good reason to switch if their computers are working right now.
A non-geek friend of mine just bought a new laptop. We (me and another geek) were sitting around helping her install the latest windows updates, and talking about how she should try Linux, since both of us used it regularly on our personal computers. Finally she asked us, "Do I need Linux?" and both of us realized that neither of us wanted to be Linux admins for her so we said no. There was no real benefit to her switching, and quite a few drawbacks since she likes to keep current on Flash cartoons and movies.
So she knew about Linux before we talked to her, but she didn't really know why she'd need it. There was no motivating factor to switch. If a person isn't motivated to do it themself, few people will really want to do it for them. It would get annoying pretty fast, all those phone calls when wifi or email stops working mysteriously, or they can't watch some movie clip.
steampunk web design
It's funny because as I read your post I was thinking "Haha, this guy hates Windows", just untill the last point where you blame everything on Linux.
Even though I've got grandma running Linspire, it does still not quite work intuitively enough for some applications, like printing proof sheets of photos, scanning or managing her photo albums. BUT she can install software in a snap using Linspires "Click and Run" system, which makes it really easy and puts an icon for you on the desktop... all in 1 click. I would not let her use distros like Ubuntu or Mepis, as those are great for beginners, they are still not for the "ultra newbie" and "forever a newbie" like grandma. But anybody with any sense of doing a bit of their own troubleshooting should have no problems.
Meh.
If you are serious about ditching Microsoft -as I hope most people are these days- then you should be willing to invest at least a little bit of time into learning the new OS. It may seem more complicated at first, but really it isn't - things are just done differently... and mostly in a way that makes a lot more sense. Many things are actually far easier in Linux than in Windows, you just have to be willing to take the time to find that command you need.
With distros such as Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/) whose primary goal is to push Linux into the mainstream, what used to be complicated tasks such as loading new packages or even installing the OS have become very simple (and if you can't figure out Synaptic package manager, then sorry but you must also be very simple).
The community for Linux is excellent - it has to be because the whole thing is built and supported by the community, not some corporate fat cat who only think they know what you want (or at least know how to get all your money for things that should be free). With such an amazing community supporting it, whenever you come across something you don't know how to do, usually all it takes is a quick search and you've got full out step-by-step instructions on the one command it's going to take you to resize all those images you just transferred off your digital camera. Even with the extra time of looking up how to do it, you're still saving yourself the hours it could take to open them in Photoshop and manually resize and save each image individually and next time all you have to do is run the one command and all your photos are ready to be e-mailed! Feel the power of the command line and batch processing run through your fingers and onto your keyboard.
Really, as long as you can put in the time to learn the new (and often better) way of performing your tasks there is no reason not to switch to Linux (unless you do a lot of gaming or have proprietary Windows apps that there is no alternative for). Please do what's right and make the switch!
The more (lazy) reporters come up with FUD articles about Linux, the longer my job will be justified. The more "linux is hard" articles that come out, the lower the chance of my job being shipped to India. Every time I see one of these on Slashdot, I'm excited because my PHB might see it, too, and remember how hard computers are next time I come up for a performance review.
It would have taken a similar amount of time and energy to learn windows for the first time too.
Please don't get me wrong; I really like Linux - and had some years of working with unix systems before I tried it, but I too was surprised how much trouble I had getting some things set up; considering the marketing I was being given on its ease.
I've got a Linux network at home, and I have no plans to dump it; but I know several people who have computers and are considering an upgrade. As much as I'd love to recommend Linux, for reasons of principle as well as practicality (they don't have a lot of money to throw around), I simply can't. They're not up to the job of handling the OS.
That may not be the market that Linux is after; I don't know, but I agree with the author's conclusion (whose emphasis was removed in the summary): "Claims by some Linux publishers that anybody can easily switch to Linux from Windows seem totally oversold.:
Running Windows^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSX and Linux in the home. (I don't have time for Solitaire any more.)
I like Linux. I think it's a wonderful project, and I've run it myself before. However, with Windows, you install it and go. There's no "oh, well you have to recompile the kernel with these minor changes, and find special driver fixes for your particular hardware" that comes along with most distributions. Linux just requires a high initial config/setup time, and saying that a standard Windows user is stupid or lazy because they don't automagically know that a gnarly 50-character shell command could solve their problems, or don't want to spend hours trying to find a solution online, is just usual fanboy/fanatic talk. I'm a fairly experienced programmer/computer geek, and my opinion is that, while much better than Windows from almost every standpoint, Linux fights me every step of the way. What am I going to use, an operating system that fights me and randomly eats my boot sector (apparently, guess what, a hardware compatibility issue), or a throwaway system with plug-and-play Windows? For those of you that would say "You probably use XP and are a loser," I prefer 2k.
Many linux advocates I've met often say to me that there is no need to continue using windows because there are open source alternatives to nearly everything that exists as Windows software.
TFA hits the nail right on the head by saying that many people are not willing to invest time into looking for these open source alternatives. While sites like sourceforge makes the search for these alternatives much easier, many of the projects listed seem to be in a beta/alpha stage. Usually these projects are difficult to setup and get working if you do not already have a technical background.
As stated many times before, if Linux wants to cater to the average joe out there, there needs to be more user-friendly solutions. In reply to an earlier post about the lazy user syndrome, we cannot expect to change many of these user's viewpoints and attitudes about technology. They don't want something that 'just works' - in fact I'd say that they'd rather have something that's idiot proof and easy to setup than something that just works. Just look at Windows.
Usually I hear of those people who help their family members or friends to get used to Linux. This is perfectly fine and all, but I imagine that without this kind of 'mentorship', it would be hard to get started on your own feet if you do not have experience with computers. (I.E normal joes who use Windows occasionally.)
Linux needs to get away from the geeky side - Gentoo, Slackware etc - and have more user-friendly distros - maybe Fedora Core or Mandriva, I didn't use them before so I can't comment.
If they want to use Linux, great for them. I'm not going to force them to do it, if and when Linux gets ready for the Desktop users, they will migrate. Otherwise, I'm fine with linux being the hobby developer / server os it is.
To pull a christian metaphor, you really can't force salvation upon them.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I'm kind of surprised that some hasn't managed to come up with a distro that does the vast majority of what guys like this expect out-of-the-box. Since we know almost all that stuff is possible with some effort, it should be possible to comeup with a distro that does it, no? Take the distro with the best hardware support, install whatever is needed to play DVDs etc regardless of whether it pisses some people off, etc.
Then there's the expectations part, where I was going to explain that peoples expectations need to be managed when it comes to what to expect when switching. But actually, this guy had pretty reasonable expectations - wanting the OS to work with his graphics and sound hardware is certainly reasonable. Wanting to play common multimedia formats found all over the net is perfectly reasonable. Being able to deal with complex MSOffice documents is something that will have to be possible to make switching practical for a lot of people. The iTunes business is not quite so reasonable - if Apple don't say it's compatible with Linux, then there's no reason to expect to be able to use it, although it's reasonable to want to, if you have an ipod.
Reasonable article, even if we've seen the like often enough.
Oh no... it's the future.
I'm an Ordinary PC User. I Ditched Windows for Linux.
Now only at least one more person is necessary to bring an answer to the title: "Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux?"
Its all in the plurality!
The author definitely has a limited amount of time ... he's definitely in line for 'the slacker' award.
Unless you're a gentoo junkie and emerge sync and build every day...
Things change too much and break too often. A computer is just a tool for most people. It needs to just work out of the box, and Linux is very far behind in that respect for a lot of people.
I keep hearing how hard it is to get things working out of the box with Windows and it leaves me wondering how long it's been since most Linux users have used Windows on a good home PC. It still sucks in some respects, but Windows XP is very good about "just working" for most hardware and software that average people want.
It's really quite depressing to see how sluggish the mainstream distros can be today. I have a PC that I just had to bring up to 768MB of RAM that can run XP, BeOS Dev Edition and HaikuOS (yep, I boot into HaikuOS from time to time) and Linux is the only slow OS it's run before. SuSE is a beast. XP multitasks just fine with Folding@Home, Firefox, iTunes and a few other apps open.
People say "just use the gimp" to you I say that The Gimp SUCKS so hard that it isnt funny! OOo is a great alternative, except for the fact that if you eant to share docs with the most popular suit' MS office, you have to lock the files into a propriatery format!
Several Linux distros on their own make great enviornments, but without the support of huge vendors like Adobe and a massive teardown of MS Office lock-in, there is no way that this can take off.
As much as the GNU folks are pained by the thought, without propriatery tools like Quickbooks, Adobe CS and acrobat product lines, apps like iTunes to use the content that windows users already have, DVD playback, and so on, few are willing to make the transition.
This weekend I came across a tutorial for installing programs on Ubuntu. I was appalled that it involved more than dragging an icon from one place to another. In fact, the tutorial went on for several (screen)pages. When I have software developed I keep my options open, should I ever want/need to ditch Apple for Linux in my company, but for the time being I'm only all too happy with the former.
Bert
I use Vector Linux for every day tasks on a Dell laptop. Easy install, one CD, 15-20 min., hardware automagically recognized, network and internet available and I have a full KDE system running with Firefox (flash plugin, multimedia readt), Sylpheed (mail) and OpenOffice.org etc. Extra apps are easy to install via GSlapt. USB-hotplug works like a charm (usb-harddisk, camera, stick). Try that with Windows.
Laptop: Vector Linux 5.1.1 SOHO Server: Vector Linux 5.1 Std. Games: Philips NMS 8280 MSX2 / Nintendo DS
I used Linux for about a six months, then tried running Windows XP. It was a total disaster. Nothing worked right in Windows. Nothing was easy to install or safe. I had to run anti-spyware and AV software all the time, and it never really worked right. Ultimately, I kept my computer as safe as could be but still ended up with a unidentified rootkit anyway.
It wasn't worth the bother. I switched right back to Linux and I've never even thought about going back.
Joe Normal User tries to get on his wireless LAN with this cool new Fedora Core system he found and wanted to try. Sure it loaded up fine onto his system; the installer was intuitive and straight-forward. However, he has no internet. He plugs in his CAT5 and the problem fixed. But that sucks. He bought the wireless router so he could do away with that ugly red cable that snakes across the living room and pisses off his wife. Oh well, he'll keep going, he's curious.
What is this about no mp3's without setting up yum and grabbing the needed stuff? Okay, Joe Normal User has read up on yum and yum.conf and struggled through getting it setup after searching the forums and jumping on IRC (Joe is happy about an IRC client coming standard). He finds the repository he needed (and writes down the steps he went through for later reference) and types "yum install blehbleh". He thinks the typing is quaint and makes him feel like a hacker. Cool, mp3s are working now. Joe is getting a sense of power from bending the computer to his will.
He excitedly tries to play a DVD. Nothing. Okay, hit the forums again. Damn...no DVD support. Something about media cartels and general nefariousness seem to be getting in his way but there seems to be a solution. He uses his newfound hacking skills and fires up yum again. He downloads some libraries with cool hacker-sounding names like 'libdethdvd3' and VLC, as well as MPlayer just in case. Cool! Now his test DVD title screen comes up....but DAMN, it freezes when play is pressed. MPlayer does nothing. He hits the forums again reads something about certain DVD's that don't play nice and something about evil media cartels again.
He decides he doesn't have time for this so he slicks the drive and re-installs Windows, then goes and makes love to his wife after apologizing about all the cables and how he is spending too much time in front of the computer.
There are a plethora of programs for handling various types of media on Linux, as well as the BSDs and even Solaris.
VLC has proven itself to be a true challenger to Media Player. Under Linux, it can play virtually any audio or video file. This is without having to search endlessly for codecs, as is often the case with Windows. All the necessary codecs are included when it comes to VLC.
When it comes to editing, there are again many, many suitable programs available. A simple search at Freshmeat will give a very complete list of such softwares.
I've been using linux for sometime now. Yes it can be tricky to set up. I tried Ubuntu and it worked out the Box, even with Chinese/Japanese/Korean support, changing between language profiles and language input methods is easy too.
Granted it does not have Office, etc, but clones thereof.
My mothers computer died and we do not know what has happned to her windows CD. We got a new HDD and I suggested we try Ubuntu. I let my mother install it. The only two things I needed to give her was the Wifi points access code and then enabling universal sources. I told her any programs she wanted she could add from the package manager.
Maybe my mom is just smart that she can follow two simple steps. Everything works now. Using hotmail and gmail she has not set up any mail programs.
People talk about Linux being complex, it is. People talk about Windows/Mac being easy, they are for the most part. When this discussion comes up I ask a question: How complex/easy are the tasks *you* wish to perform on a computer? Generally I find most people do not do much more than surf/email/office stuff/IM/multimedia creation and playback. All of these are about as easy on a good Linux distro as any other OS.
My wife's grandmother uses a computer all the time-- she's ninety. She does just fine with anything I put in front of her so long as the icons are the same and found easily. The problem for most people is not how difficult it is, but rather how different it is.
As for the complex parts of Linux, I believe a lot of savvy people sit down to learn Linux and get drawn into apache/Cups/Samba/etc by the books they pickup that profess to be "Linux Bibles." Very indepth knowledge about the intricate nuances of Apache aren't needed for daily usage. How many people setup a webserver on their windows/mac machines? BTW, have you ever read the Bible? Way too much info, so why would I want a Bible? Sheesh.
Finally, when people talk about their Grandmother/Grandfather using a machine, I have to ask if that age group is really the demographic to design computers or operating systems for?
i doubt that any windows user would just switch without problems
not because it is hard but they expect it to work the same and not have to learn
new things
if you ask the same user how long it took them to understand windows properly
then i guess most would say months or years
then in the same breath they expect that switching to linux could be accomplished
in a few days
its not over sold it is the fact that it takes time to understand ,
and you have to remember that you will need to learn the diferences
not just load it and wonder why things are totaly diferent
just diving into linux and trying to do the same things they would do in linux
is going to cause problems. as they do not understand the fundimental
diferences between the two , and then can not be bothered to understand why
its not a failure of linux its a failure of the user to take the time to understand
one of the things that used to happen before the pc , dos / windows was any machine
that came out had its own operating system
people that grew up in that environment got used to diferent ways that they operated
now because of the monoculture of windows people don't expect anything to be any
diferent from it and seem unwilling to take the time to relearn
it would be diferent for someone who did not have the option of reverting to windows and had to relearn
but its all to easy to say stuff it and revert to windows for meany of these attempted switches to linux
from those that i do know of that have made the change and taken the time to learn
they are very happy with linux and prefer it in a lot of ways , i should also add
that now need less tec support than when using windows because they have found out
how to find solutions to there problems there selves
After the tests, representatives of Fedora, Linspire and Novell told me that Sony Vaios are known to have compatibility problems with Linux.
I loaded SUSE 10 on my Sony VAIO laptop and my desktop and it worked right off, even with a 54g wireless card. Mind you, I chose the specific D-Link card I used because Linux drivers were reputed to exist for it. But seems fully functional to me. Added VMWare so I could also run OpenBSD and Solaris x86, which worked.
He's just trying to keep running Windows by using Linux, which is crazy really and obviously why we still in 2006 are having problems, and will continue to have problems, people aren't trying to switch, he was, by his own admission, just looking to cheap out.. That's the main problem outside the hardware issues, userland apps that are designed for Windows, he's trying to stay stuck on them. Yes, it is a real world test, but turn it around, try to get that XP machine to open and run a linux only app,and see what happens. I have virtually no problems using linux, because I don't try to run Windows or Macintosh programs with it.
/round hole) and it will be a *guaranteed failure*, every single time, there will always be something that doesn't work.
That's it! I really "switched", he didn't, and most people who "tried" linux and had issues also didn't "switch", they still tried to run WINDOWS applications with it. That isn't switching, that is being lame and illogical. If you are going to just insist on running windows applications, then just stay there and don't waste your time.
You could devise any "test" you want along those lines (square peg
I've been watching the Linux evolution since RedHat 5.0, and I would have to say that I am very impressed with how far it has come since then. I just downloaded Fedora Core 5, Gentoo, and SuSE 10 two weeks ago and started playing around again. (SuSE has the nicest out of the box user interface, but Fedora was easier to update and configure, so it wins, I was too stupid to figure out how to use Gentoo)
I think WINE is the single most important project that will make me switch to Linux if it is ever completed. When I can run my CAD software (Altium Designer) successfully I will be "sold". My only beef with Linux distributions is the bloat of useless apps included with the distro. Why do I need five CDs to install the operating system when Windows XP only takes one?
You know, I hate how there are just some people that cannot learn for themselves. They are willing to blame everyone else for their inability to learn things.
Take recent journalism; a large number of stories that have come out of main stream news media have been bashed recently. The bashing is caused by the lack of investigative analysis done for these articles. I am not saying you have to check every fact, but that a fair cry from checking no facts. Basically, these sorts of journalists are willing to accept whatever they are are told, and in the case of a few lazy ones just copy and paste a "press release" as their own work.
Back to computers, I work with people that have used Word Perfect for years and when the business wants to upgrade to MS Office, they refused! These people were so stubborn they would not even try MS Word becuase it is to different!
For the article, if the person is not going to put in the effort to learn enough to be decent at Linux, how can know whether it is because Linux is hard or he is just an idiot? This article is like listening to the author say he bought "Learning Spanish for Dummies", and found out he could not learn Spanish in a week.
others do it for free themselves
It's only free if your time is worthless.
Malware and virii may be an administrative nightmare, but i'd say the number of people who's bank account has been drained due to these applications is very very small. If even significant. And periodically? Please, stop with the sensationalism.
Even with a totally unprotected and lazily patched Windows box you're more likely to have your credit card or bank details stolen by more conventional methods.
Spam and email scams are a different matter, but as well all know that has nothing to do with what OS you use.
I love to tinker. I'm writing this on a Windows Laptop, but I'm also listening to some music playing on my Apple desktop, and this post flows through my home network where http proxies are running on my Linux server - which hosts my mail, proxy server, internet filter, backup drives, and probably about a dozen other services I'm forgetting at the moment. My point is that I probably don't qualify as one you would describe as a "lazy user."
Having made that disclaimer, most people buy computers to do a task, not to tinker. In fact, the reason I switched my desktops to Mac OS X from Linux (where I had been an almost exclusive linux desktop user for 6-7 years) was because what was possible on Linux was made easy under Mac OS X. I looked seriously at cinelerra and Kino and other tools for editing home movies, and decided that iMovie/iDVD was quite adequate to meet my needs. Does that make me lazy? No. It means that I wanted a tool for a particular purpose, and found one.
Windows *owns* the market. You want to "beat" them? Make the transition seamless and painless for the customer. It's like making a "better" car where the turn signal lever is mounted on the right by default. (You've got 300 other options available from the config file, too) Also, the clutch pedal is on the far left - about twice as far as in "regular" cars, and the shift lever is longer and includes the volume control for the stereo. You might make the argument that people would prefer these changes, and it's not hard to get used to them, or that they could "easily" modify the configuration to match the "inferior" standard car. Would that make people who are frustrated by these minor differences lazy?
I submit that it's this "insult the user" mindset on the part of the OS community that slows adoption of superior tools. People are not stupid - they also generally have no interest in becoming an auto mechanic or a PC mechanic. There's nothing wrong with you being an expert in lots of different configurations - that interests you. Good for you. Make the "better" product just like the original - only better, and people will want to follow in your footsteps.
As an example, I suggest to you Vim. It's pretty geeky, but look at what it did. It incorporated all of the fuctions that vi provided - exactly the same way that vi provides them, and ALSO provides about a zillion enhancements. People who switch back and forth find basic functions work exactly the same in either product, and enhanced functions are available when on the better product. Does that make Vim designers bad designers, or people who choose Vim stupid or lazy? I suggest not. Your mileage may vary.
Respectfully,
Anomaly
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
The primary problems are:
1. Linux geek support. As a user you have two choises: a)RTFM you windoze lamer or b)just plain sneering ridicule.
2. You buy cool hardware, you spend weeks trying to get it to work.
3. Your nephews halls his game DVD to the family gathering only to find YOU have linux. Now you have to deal with the little shit interrupting the adults all the time with the fact he's bored.
4. The solution to number 3 involves jumping through countless hoops to get the game to run under WINE, or dual booting Windows, or shooting the nephew.
Sorry, until Linux becomes a system with WIDE SPREAD support and easy point-click-install-"IT-RUNS!" the vast majority of the computer public will not adopt.
Also, you have to keep todays crop of Linux geeks away from the public microphone when you are trying to sell linux.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
The first question is, which Linux?
Second question is, OK, which version of that one is the one I want?
Sorry, but easy to install is not a Linux feature. Pre-installed it would be good for many people, provided they don't want to buy any off the shelf software. Also provided they know how to do beyond rudimentary pc usage.
I would never suggest to anyone I know who has a PC to switch to Linux. If they have a problem with Windows because of the virus scare then they can go try OS/X. The point is, if they aren't swift enough to use a virus scanner and not open attachments from people they don't know they aren't going to be swift enough to run Linux.
Bluntly, Linux is never going to be a mainstream desktop operating system. The only thing they agree on is they don't like Microsoft. Beyond that its an all out war just as fanatic in their differences as most religions.
As this guy noted, he doesn't have the time to spend. Hell I have the time but don't want to waste it when I could be doing more productive work. I have installed BEOS, OS/2, and even every DOS version in the world but the most hell I had was installing Linux. Hell OS/2 was easier to install and that was with 14+ diskettes!
As for the "apps are out there crowd". Yeah, sure. The average consumer is going to need something akin to a wizard to pick the right one, let alone some way of knowing what he is looking at will do what he wants. The difference here is that at least with Windows (and OS/X too) they can lay their hands on commercial software in pretty boxes that tells them what it does. Best yet there are known established brands they feel a little bit of trust for.
Linux is in a field of catch-22s.
There aren't enough commercial apps because not enough people use it and not enough people use it because there are not enough apps.
Same for drivers.
Then the big catch 22, Linux is easy to use and install, provided you know which one you want, which version you want, and which one you can get support on.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I've tried out numerous flavors of Linux and even (gasp) BSDs, after being a Dos/Windows user for over 12 years. As a matter of fact, I've dumped Windows on all my machines but my game box. If you aren't afraid to read to RTFM, then generally you won't have any problems. The most significant issues regarding Linux/BSD resolves around hardware/drivers and gaming. If vendors would work with developers, then the switch would be easier for many people, IMHO.
1. Get distro CD
2. Repartition HD
3. Lose 90% of your base because the whole idea of repartioning your HD scares them to death!
4. Lose another 5% of users when Linux chokes on your brand new hardware.
5a. Your hardware is supported, and Linux installs without a hitch.
5b. Your hardware requires extra configuration but you're an uber-geek and know how to configure it. This describes less than 1% of the market.
The fact is, until you can walk into a typical CompUSA or WorstBuy and get a PC with Linux already on it, most people won't bother.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
I guess you've hit the nail - all we have to do is change all the people and Linux adoption will take off. That's a much easier problem to fix.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
I tried Switching from Windows to Linux a while back. I ended up switch to OSX. OSX is what Linux should be, but unfortuantely never will be because too many OSS developers don't place enough importance on usability.
Every one HAS to go through the learning curve,most give up.You need to dedicate 'time' and have 'patience' to be comfortable with ANYTHING.Stop bashing the poor guy!
By the way my sis uses slackware linux,how many 'linux' guys here are 'good/comfortable' at slackware linux?
My 15-year-old daughter has been running Mandrake since she was ten. How hard can it be? ;-)
.doc format itself. It'll be interesting to see if Word *will* eventually support .odf documents.
Granted, some Word documents don't translate perfectly in OpenOffice, but I'm not sure that's so much a problem with OO as it is with the
And laptops are almost always a problem unto themselves, whether trying to load Linux *or* Windows. Try loading a "generic" copy of Windows, i.e., one that wasn't specfically made for your specific laptop...you'll have problems with it, too. Laptop hardware is often just too specialized to make for easy installs. That said, Linux improves by leaps and bounds with every release. The next release of Windows is due...when? 2009? I lost track...
I understand the author's reluctance to spend much time being a "system administrator," but, like I said, he would have likely been in for that when loading XP, too. OTOH, I've found that Linux installs on desktops are almost *always* easier and quicker than Windows installs. Far fewer reboots during the process, too. And Linux doesn't try to "phone home" during the installation, either.
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
But, if the ordinary user is running their own company or just using their computer the way my mother uses hers, then the day when they can ditch Windows for Linux with zero effort came and went five years ago.
I'm not saying that this guy is not an ordinary user, just that that term is too broad to matter. Ordinary home user? Ordinary office user? Ordinary SOHO user? Ordinary gamer? Some of these are more tightly tied to MS than others. How many Ordinary gamers can ditch Windows for the Mac with the same degree of compliance as this guy?
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
It's 30 757 812.5 Newtons @ 1M = 39.37 inches ;-)
I'm an Ordinary PC User Ordinary user posting on ./! Wow, I am fianlly mainstream. Funny, I don't feel different.
Linux will not work for average users until a way is found to include some basic features that ship with both Windows and Mac OS X. Flash plug-ins for the browsers is one of those things. Many distro's include this if you buy their retail, or Pro versions, but most average users are either going to download the fully free versions, or get them from someone they know to try out.
Even if Flash and other multimedia components where auto installed as an update process, much like Nvidia drivers are with Suse and some others, that would be much better.
Recently I installed Ubuntu 5.10 to see what was up with it. In order to get Flash installed I had to use command line utilities*. When your average user gets to this, they will give up. Some might take the time to figure it out, but let's be honest, very few of them are going to keep going when they run into that with the next piece of software, and even less are going to learn the system better and become truly comfortable with it.
Many comments are already complaining about the fact that people like this are either stupid or lazy. People, this is the 21st friggen' century. We have had GUI based computing for a long time now. There is no reason to have to jump through command line hoops to install what is considered a basic necessity on the web, especially by average users.
I can already hear the clicking on moderators sending my into the troll or flamebait abyss. Go ahead, that doesn't change basic facts.
I myself have no problem doing this, but there are people that I work with / am friends with / are related to that I would really like to get off of Windows as they always are having problems. I can't recommend Linux until I know they will be calling me with real problems, not "how do I play this movie," or "why can't I see this web page?"
From what I have seen, especially in the past day or so, is that a lot of this comes from linux zealotry involving licensing. Just look at the recent Koraraa debacle. The maintainer isn't being asked to pull a live cd by either Linus, or ATI/Nvidia, but some random linux user concerned about 'the open source ideal.' That is one great way to keep this stuff out of people's hands.
I know many people that enjoy linux don't necessarily want it to take over. And that is fine, but referring to people that don't want to jump through hoops that this day and age should not be necessary as lazy/stupid just makes the people making those comments look bad.
* - Ubuntu doesn't ship with flash. And if you go to the Macromedia site linked to by any flash using page, the linux page seems to either be missing or incorrectly linked. The solution is to edit a file containing the repositories, then updating (its been a while and I don't use Ubuntu, apt I think?), and then attempting to get it to install. This is akin to asking your average Joe to fire up regedit, make changes, then fire up the dos prompt and run a few commands. Silly, absolutely silly.
Shawn's Tech Articles
Seems to me like this guy wanted to see what Linux would be like with almost zero work at all. He didn't try popular apps like GTKpod to connect to his iPod, or MPlayer to watch his media, or install any plugins to Firefox to be able to watch online videos. It's like installing Windows XP and expecting all of your applications to just be there. Guess what, you still have to install iTunes, you still have to install the flash plugin, you still need to install Quicktime, and MS has been in antitrust hearings repeatedly for bundling its media player.
.exe to download). The fact that he tries to install iTunes, use Office, etc, makes it look like he's trying to just use Windows apps on Linux, which everyone knows doesn't work very well (and it's really not Linux's fault, the developers of Windows and its applications can't be bothered to help Linux developers, not to mention the fact that the Windows libraries and environment must be emulated).
If he'd spent maybe ten minutes googling for "linux ipod" or "linux media player" he could have found the names of the apps he was looking for quite easily, and then installed them through his distribution's package manager (unlike in Windows where you have to search for a download mirror or find the download link on a site, followed by choosing the right
I'm glad this guy tried more than one distro, but I still think he could have bothered to see what alternatives were available.
I agree. What he's saying is that an experienced windows user, who has spent years building up their skill, cannot use Linux as easily with a very small investment of time. I am sure the opposite is also true.
errr...
;)
I was just passing. Honest!
But, hey, I use my PC ordinarily!
Imho Linux itself is not the problem. Just take a look at a recent Suse Distribution. I would even say that the whole system is much easier to control and configure with such tools as Yast.
However there is just a lack of software under Linux. Sure there are a lot of programs. But people usually want to have a choice and they want the program to be as easy to use as possible. Most people are then even willingly to pay money for that, just to avoid the hassle. To make a program very usable and to think about terms as User Interface etc... that's just the stuff that's quite boring and tedious and Open Source programmers usually avoid it and try to do the more "edgy" stuff. Or why are there dozens of distributions available but very very few solutions for online-banking?
Sometimes the Opensource model comes to its limit and that's where the commercial software development comes in, which is especially true for End-User Desktop software.
I take myself as an example: If I look through my programs that I have installed on my windows box there are several things where I don't have a nice linux solution:
1.) Games
2.) PaintshopPro. Sure there is Gimp, but I'm using Psp since 1996 or so and I just don't WANT to learn a new software
3.) JWPce - a tool for learning Japanese
4.) Hauppauge WinTV Software - last time I've checked it was very difficult to get it running under Linux and I just want to watch TV...
5.) sensor software to read out CPU temp etc. - I just don't have the time to fiddle around with lmsensors...
List could go on... We need more software software software... simple as that imho
There's still a few missing programs that I use everyday that's stopping me from switching even though I've love to ASAP. Can't stand calling M$ up for 'permission' to reinstall my legally purchased copy of XP Pro. - iTunes with thier DRM AAC supported & ablity to purchase songs & tv shows from thier online site. I hear this is comming eventually. When? :(
- Bitcomet or uTorrent. Azureus sucks.
- Creative X-Fi sound drivers & full software package that comes on the Windows install. This is impossible of course, so there's no point in trying a linux distro at all.
- DRM Microsoft file support (less of an issue but some websites require dl'ing a license to playback content).
Other bitches include a 'base' linux that's supported on all Linux distro's for drivers... ect. That and the KDE user interface is something only a programmer could like. It's not consumer friendly looking at all. I just don't get why the main program list menu has to break software packages down to like media, games, applications... ect on the main menu. They need to come up with something new and really simplified that puts all programs in one list. Vista start menu looks nice. It looks like something from 1994 still, and that's not a good thing at all. Same with open office too.
Ease of use is one thing...(sorry, gotta reboot)...I wonder if he...(again a reboot)...
would consider another (damn windows; rebooting) factor: (reboot) stability.
Moving To Ubuntu Linux
Mepis - Point & Click Linux
Linspire - The No Nonsense Guide
Each book comes with a live Linux CD for the specific distro the book concentrates on.
Meh.
People with basic home computing needs (e-mail, internet, chat, basic word processing and spreadsheet, etc) will be just fine with Linux, in particular Ubuntu. I've built and given away many computers to basic home users with Ubuntu installed and it's worked out great in most cases. One of the boxes I gave away went to a student at Kansas State University, who was able to use it for his entire senior year with no problems.
Many Windows to Linux migration problems occur when time constrained professionals (like the author) attempt to migrate complex, business critical workflows without the help of an IT department. I firmly believe that with proper configuration and deployment Linux can meet most busines computing needs, but the end users will not be able to migrate their existing desktop workflows by themselves.
This isn't saying anything bad about the author, or Linux, it's just the way things are. Linux is a very good desktop operating system, and getting better every day. It's just not that easy to migrate complex business desktop workflows yet.
RTFM ya n00b!
:)
.doc file I can create it in OpenOffice and usually receive no complaints from MS Word users.
:)
*grin!
Other than the crazy uptimes a bit of zealotry is half of what keeps Linux fun
But seriously, interoperability between OpenOffice and MS Office is not perfect, but I can live with it. If I know someone needs a
His point on media is right though, WMV9 sucks on Linux, but thats closed formats for you. Then again we've got a handfull XP machines with different hardware at work that bork themselves in a variety of amusing ways whenever you play any WMV at all. Every OS (*nix, Windows, OSX) has its compatability issues, pick one and live with it. Meh, I don't care if the masses don't go to Linux, its an OS that I happen to prefer and other can choose to use it or not.
For me, Linux just works. I had Gentoo and Ubuntu running on this laptop (never booted windows at all) and not had any problems. Ubuntu (Dapper) is definitely the friendlier of the two, but I prefer Debian to start with on my servers at work.
I have to say though, I still get a chuckle when I see someone running XP with their variety of anti-virus and firewall software. That always makes my day worthwhile. Yeah, Windows is so much nicer. Every time I have to use it I feel slightly more retarded
I'm reading the comments here and this strikes me as missing the key point. Look at this user:
1) He is completely satisfied with windows he just wants a free OS.
2) His core app is Microsoft specific (office)
3) He wants to use windows specific multimedia
4) He doesn't care about any of the free software issues at all. For example he's fine with having his data locked up in proprietary formats.
Well yeah he'll like windows better. Why should he like Linux better? This article is just stupidly stating the obvious.
I seem to see these every few weeks here on /. This user starts from the assumption that Linux is now easy to install and use for anyone with any hardware. This is, of course, not true.
First of all, his choice of distributions is based on what comes with an old Linux for Dummies book. He could have perhaps looked into (or asked a friend) what modern distributions are popular from a usability and hardware detection standpoint. He likely would have tried (K)Ubuntu or Mandriva.
Second of all, he does have somewhat unusual hardware. I would go so far as to recommend that nobody with a Sony Vaio should take the Linux plunge unless they are prepared to do some manual hardware configuration. My wife had a Vaio which I ran through multiple distros/versions, and always had some issue with the hardware.
Third, he assumes that complete interoperability with Microsoft Office is a condition for success in his test. I have always viewed OpenOffice's MS Office compatability as a convenience, but realize that I will likely never be able to rely on it. Anyone who has to swap complex, particularly formatted documents in MS Office format must use MS Office. This should not, however, be a reason given for Linux non-usability.
All this is to say that if he wants a usability test, then first hand over his laptop to someone like me, I'll get everything working as smoothly as I can, and then we can discuss his issues with usability. If he wants an ease-of-install comparison, then compare how much of his hardware works after he installs Windows XP from scratch vs. some Linux distribution.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
no, but really, I am just passing... And still use my PC Ordinarily. :D
I find all the hype about linux/OSS being just as simple as closed source solutions irrelevent. Personally, I choice OSS because I understand my computer and its innerworkings, and I want to know exacly what my software is doing, and control it completly. Closed source software has a tendancies to hide what it is doing, it may do what _it_ assumes you want it to do very well and simply, but go beyond that and it becomes very awkward to work with.
While some OSS software venders may be looking to increase ditribution, it has to be remembered that that is not the point of it in general. Market share, ease of use, etc. should not be the yardstick used to measure its success.
If people are not willing to put in time to learn about there computer, they should get something that is straight forward and well supported. If someone wants to understand what is going on and have full control, go with OS. No software is perfect for any of these, and there are overlaps between them, but if asked I would continue to recommend Windows for the casual user. I don't see OS getting good enough (from that percepective) anytime soon, nor do I think that it should be the primary direction it should be heading in.
On the other side of the coin, I was asked to setup a computer for my Brother and Sister-In-Law. Both of them had somehow fallen through the cracks of the past 15 years and NEVER used a computer before. I installed SuSe Linux 10 for them, and it works great. Neither of them know the difference, or had a hard time learning it, because they had never used Windows before.
It's been said a few times in the comments on this article, as well as numerous other places, that switching to Linux has a learning curve. It sure does - but so does learning Windows - The only difference is most people are already familiar with windows.
It took only about 30 minutes to teach them.. "ok, click here to get your email, click here to get on the web, here is your word processor and spreadsheet.. you can play music and videos using this... " etc..
Don't Tread on Me
OK, I've been a Debian user since 2000, and an Ubuntu user for a couple of months now. I just want to say that I installed Ubuntu for the first time and I didn't need to configure anything at all...nothing. I mean, *everything* worked: my digital camera, printer, iPod...everything. I never edited any config files. The only thing I did was configure my printer through Gnome. To play multimedia files, I did a quick Google search, like "ubuntu play dvd" and got step by step instructions on how to download the right packages and information about why it wasn't enabled by default (legal issues).
Now, I would say I'm an advanced Linux user for sure, but I didn't need to know anything like that to use Ubuntu. I'm not saying that Linux doesn't have issues, but I think a good deal of them depend entirely on what hardware you are using and the rest are rapidly disappearing. BTW, my hardware is a Dell Precision Workstation 410, with a Matrox G400 video card, not a Vaio.
I was on a quest to find a Linux Distro that could be used by a person with limited computing skills. I wanted something that after running the original install CD, had all the hardware and major pieces of software installed and configured correctly. I was tired of having to install my video card drivers or Sun's JRE. I tried Debian and Ubuntu and a couple other distro's, and then discovered PCLinuxOS. This, my friends, is the friendliest distribution out there. Installation was a breeze. All the software you might need is pre-installed. Its packages are up-to-date and there is still a dev team working on the project. Additionally, it has a LiveCD, so you can try it out on your own computer without screwing up your current install. If you like it, you can install the OS directly from the running LiveCD! Pretty slick. You knew that after all this time there had to be at least one distro thats getting it right, and PCLinuxOS is it. http://www.pclinuxos.com/
I've helped a lot of people transition to Linux, and there are some valid reasons for the switch sometimes being difficult, but I don't see the "lack of multimedia" as a valid argument really. For multimedia, the "average" user (if such a thing exists) needs to be able to listen to music, watch videos (steaming, flash, MPEG2 and DivX seem to be most common for average users), play games, and manage photos. SuSE (the boxed set, not OpenSuSE), which is what I use primarily, comes out of the box with flash, libmpeg123, Nvidia's binary drivers (actually downloaded off the net, but this is handled during the install process and is transparent to the user), and a number of nice multimedia applications including XMMS, Bleep Media Player, and Kaffine. This covers most multimedia needs. Personally, I find digiKam to be superior to iPhoto for managing photographs, and all I had to do to get my camera to work was to plug it in, launch digiKam, and let it automatically detect my camera.
The fact is that I do a lot of multimedia work professionally, and I use Linux as my primary OS (I have an iBook that I use for Photoshop and to take with me when I'm meeting clients). Setting up my desktop for my work pretty much involved putting in the DVD, letting the installer run, installing the main off-the-shelf application that I use for work (which has a native Linux version incidentally), and get to work.
The fact is that Linux is different than Windows. Some applications require a bit of effort to download and install <sarcasm> thanks to all those patent laws that help to encourage innovation</sarcasm> but some things that are fairly automagic on Linux require effort to get working on Windows, and many of these things (drivers comming to mind) are more fundamental to having a working system than the issues that Linux has. What it really comes down to though, in my opinion, is that there are a lot of people who switch to Linux without really having a reason to switch. Yeah, viruses, malware, buggy drivers, expense- for most people these aren't really reason enough to switch.
I started using Linux in 97 or 98 because at the time I was just starting to really learn about computers, and about programming, and I wanted a system that would allow me to really explore the system. I continued with it because I found it to be a superior development platform compared to Windows.
To contrast the experience many people have had- when I started at my University, all of the machines were using Windows 2000. I decided to try dual booting so that I could run some of the required software for some of the classes. In the end I gave up and was disgusted because I didn't really have a reason that made me WANT to use a different system. Instead of taking the obvious and easier solution of dual booting and running the applications we needed at school in Windows, I either found online, bought, or wrote my own applications so I could stick with the system I was more comfortable with.
When I decided to get a laptop, I decided to get an iBook because I had a reason, but more importantly, I WANTED to try OS X. In the end, a lot of people who try linux and complain about it just don't WANT to try Linux, and so they don't do what is required.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
I just realized the first book I listed is not even released yet, the one I actually meant to post was Moving To Linux, which I am familiar with. It contains a live Knoppix CD customized by the author. But I suspect the Moving To Ubuntu Linux book will be just as good if not better.
Meh.
I would class myself as probably a step above the "ordinary user" -- while I can rip apart hardware and have great fluency with the windows OS, when it comes to things like *nix I'm definately a fish out of water.
/etc/ or some strange directory (that wasn't under a disk such as C:! How confusing.
For laughs, the other day I ordered my Ubuntu CDs and a few weeks later they arrived. I formatted my harddrive and installed the software. First thing's first, after that tedious installation I jumped on the internet and MSN Messenger/iChat (no problem) and went to play an mp3 that was stuck in my head. Jumped onto the samba share for my file server, went to doubleclick and play, but no dice -- Ubuntu doesn't play mp3's out of the box. I copy it locally and try again, to no avail. Trawling across the internet, I downloaded a media player but couldn't install it, because I didn't have access to
Eventually I got fed up, formatted again and installed Windows XP. Within minutes I had my whole mp3 collection in WMP playing on random, surfing the internet and chatting on MSN Messenger happily.
The problem is, things are intuitively *easy*. I know the GUI basics (click, click, doubleclick) and that should be all I need to do anything I like. Why can't things just be easy? Once they are, the users will flow in.
As a senior Unix system administrator, I take offense to this.
I love Unix and Linux, and have several Linux boxes running at home. But I use Microsoft Windows as my day-to-day OS. This isn't because it's too hard for me to learn -- I was brought up with X terminals and Unix, and resisted Windows for the longest time, saying that just like a rent-a-maid, I don't do windows.
However... There are apps missing from Linux that I have on Windows (and vice versa). And there are more and more devices that lack drivers for Linux, meaning it's not even an alternative. Blame the companies for not releasing drivers? No, I don't do that -- if it was economically sound to do so, they would release drivers. It isn't, so they don't. And like it or not, the Linux user community is mostly PFYs who can't afford high-cost, high-quality devices, which I think is a good explanation for why there's no third party drivers for so many devices.
Then there's program interoperability. I like ABIword a lot. But, if it can't open an "advanced" document my CFO sent me without jumbling it, it's not good enough for production use, plain and simple.
Still, I prefer Unix and GNU/Linux, for many reason. But it's nowhere near being a replacement for Windows, yet. Replacement for certain tasks, yes, and doing certain other tasks that Windows can't do or doesn't do well, oh YES, but taking over as the overall desktop system? Nyet, not yet.
Regards,
--
*Art
Why even try for the market at the expense of alienating the people that _can_ switch? You can's start at point A and skip B and C on the way to D.
Saying Java is nice because it works on all OS's is like saying that anal sex is nice because it works on all genders.
This article is about what the average user would experience switching to Linux and unfortunately, this is the attitude that many users would have. Mark's intelligence or lack thereof isn't the point. What matters is that most users will not switch from a system that they are comfortable with to a system that is going to take a few weeks of use to get to the same level of proficiency. That only happens when the new system offers something so superior that the obvious benefits offset the cost of learning something new and frankly, Linux just doesn't offer that kind of benefit to the average user.
I am just like many other Windows users. I hated windows, it's lack of security, the fact I was supporting pure EEEVIIILLL. I'd migrate over to Ubuntu, and within a week, maybe two I'd format and head right back. There's just certain things you need and when you can't get them EXACTLY when you want them, painstakingly struggling, it's a big downer. How however, I have made the transition, it has been about 2 months, and I will never on my own machine use windows again. My wife still does and I have been trying to "poison her mind" as she likes to call it, to get her to use Linux. It's much like a drug, being a Windows users. You get hooked and without it you start getting withdrawl symptoms and no other drug works just the same. You see, Microsoft is evil, I just proved it.
If I calculate the number of hours I have wasted cleaning up after my dad and sister's poor browsing habits, it would probably amount to something around 6 days.
I believe Linux is an amazing OS for those who care enough about their privacy and their PCs to spend that much time in front of a monitor... Unfortunately Joe Sixpack doesn't care as long as it sends his emails and lets him browse his pr0n. That is why Linux will never work for them, it just takes too much time, the same way having a "clean" Windows OS takes time.
DesktopLinuxAtHome.com
Yes, yes, blatant advertising and hit whoring, I know
My site specifically is trying to focus on the home desktop user and I've personally converted a few non-technical newbies over to Ubuntu, Mepis and Linspire with only minor difficulties. Is Linux ready for everybody? Not quite, but there is great progress being made by a lot of distros... I am constantly amazed at how much easier and better things have gotten since even a few years ago.
Meh.
I have a couple of PCs that I'm repairing so I can donate them to needy families. These PCs don't have Windows licenses with them, so I want to put some easy-to-use Windows-like Linux distribution on them, like maybe Ubuntu or Kubuntu.
There are two problems I've run into.
(1) These families don't know of a world outside Windows. If the menus on their computer are worded differently than they're used to, if the buttons in their mail program aren't in the same places, if there's no Microsoft Word icon on the desktop, if there's no AOL icon to get them dialed in right away, if they can't pop in a CD of their Windows Sudoku game and be playing it within minutes - then they're lost and afraid and the first thing they do is go looking for a pirated copy of Windows to install instead.
(2) I turned to the community. "What Linux distribution works most like Windows?" I asked. "Install Fluxbox, you'll have to tweak it," said one person. "No, use IceWM," said another. "Windowmaker!" "qvwm!" And before long it had turned into a discussion of what window manager I should configure. I don't WANT to CONFIGURE. I want to install an operating system that's EASY TO USE right out of the box. And ease-of-use involves more than simply a window manager.
There seems to be such a huge disconnect between Linux enthusiasts and the people who use PCs because they have to use PCs. Even looking at a default KDE or GNOME installation - many of the programs have strange names which don't even make it clear what they do, and that doesn't help with a new user's comfort level when the user is afraid to click on stuff in the first place. I would be extremely hesitant giving Linux to someone who didn't already know enough to ask for it.
she successfully transitioned to a Linux based PC with no instruction beyond an occasional point in the right direction. Is Mr. Golden, vaunted writer for the WSJ, less capable than a non-technical 15 year old girl? It is true that there are areas of Linux on the desktop that need refinement and, in some cases, to be invented at all, but the tools to do solid cooperative, interoperative WORK are here and have been around for quite awhile. I recommend that Mr. Golden check out some of the Debian derivatives, e.g., Ubuntu and Linspire for a clearer look at the state of the art.
Like the inimitable Groucho Marx, I would never join a club that would have me as a member.
"We're getting there" was the infamous British Rail's tagline back in the 80s.
:)
You might want to come up with a different slogan.
No, the point is that he didn't have the time. See, he had something we call a 'job.' It's not exactly Linux's fault that it cannot use complex Excel documents, but that's life.
Just upgraded to a Western Digital 250gb hard drive. No drivers required at all. Windows XP Pro. Put the drive in, put the windows CD in the DVD drive, turned the computer on and was good to go.
Eh? I do this on a day to day basis. USB drives work wonderfully in Ubuntu Linux, as I suspect they now do in other distributions. There is nothing there that would not work normally - how hard is it to add an attachment in Evolution? Or to a webmail message in Firefox? It sounds like he downloaded or saved his file and couldn't find it again - something which could be resolved with spending a little more time understanding how the system's file structure works.
As for multimedia support, that is Microsoft and Apple's fault, not Linux.
I've been able to switch between different platforms several times without much of a problem. I think it's the comfort levels each experience gives you that makes the difference. One thing users of the designer OS' (Mac OS X or Windows) never have to worry about is inconsistent and convoluted setup and maintenance.. Ok even Windows has some pretty obscured settings and issues but in general it is very easy to use and setup - sometimes to the point of annoyance. Granted. Linux offers some simpler "human geared" options like Ubuntu or for the PPC, Yellow Dog which is very good at detecting the hardware you have and setting it up to work correctly but when, for some unknown reason, your display/graphic card isn't being detected, setup and working correctly just how is Mom supposed to figure out how to edit the config files manually using vi or some other ancient text editor and then attempt to kick start Xwindows. Nah, this is advanced stuff folks. Linux is not for the timid or anyone without a healthy knowledge of systems in general or an ability to troubleshoot- let alone the time to do so.
The person who still doesn't realize the computer is a tool like any tool, and just like with a car [...], you have to be able to use it without being an expert mechanic....
Do you drive an automatic or manual? How long did it take you to learn how? If you want to use a car metaphor with Linux, it's now closer to "Windows is an automatic, Linux is a stick-shift" than anything else.
The benefit of being an expert mechanic is that your hood isn't welded shut with Linux.
(potential disclaimer: I've got a WinXP box, a Mac Mini, and a Linux box.)
I [may] disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
Neither of them know the difference, or had a hard time learning it, because they had never used Windows before.
ok now wait two years and then get them to install Windows on their machine. Just give them a Windows install CD and don't help them at all. Tell them to log all problems they have.
Then write an article "Can ordinary PC Users Ditch Linux for Windows"
Just in the interest of neutrality...
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
To move to home user desktops codecs must be included. Until then, it's just to hard for them to use. I have to add {unknown} repositories to Yum to get the required applications, codecs, drivers, or other files so that my desktop functions properly. Either include them in the distro or have the OS/application recognize what is required and link to where it can be downloaded and automatically installed. Non-techie home user isn't going to know that they need to add any software much less what software needs to be added. Then they have to know where to get it and how to install it. That is a mountain of unknowns to someone that is new to Linux. It's easier to just use Windows. If you don't have a codec, Windows media player tells you and ask if you want to try and downloaded it. What a wonderful idea!
my thoughts anyhow...
Windows, Linux, whatever - computers are complex things to operate. This is the basic problem - we have these massively fast devices that can do any number of things, and then we're surprised when it's not as easy as using a telephone. Until someone comes up with a fully foolproof, stick-in-a-disc and it'll work flawlessly operating system that responds to what you want it to do, rather than what you tell it to do, these arguments are going to be going round forever.
Anyone can do it. I have and so have many others. Is it easy? Perhaps that's where we run into difficulty. How do we define easy? Easy for who? I found switching to Linux very hard at first. Over time it got much easier, but there was a transition zone that was rocky. Now, after working at home in a Linux environment, I go out to a customer site with Windows and it's like running in sand. Windows is far more difficult to me now, it's just so...ponderous.
One area I do agree with him is multimedia support. I'm not blaming Linux for not being able to play every media format out of the box. Multimedia is a mine field of proprietary formats and patent issues. If there was one site you could go to collect the codecs and binary only components that might take some of the sting out of the transition. Go here to get multimedia support and here for other binary components. That way Linux distros could focus on those and point users to one place for add-on components that can't be included for licensing reasons. As inconvenient as that seems it's better that way because Linux boxes can be configured for so many different uses. Windows, at least in the home setting, hauls all that garbage around whether you need it or not. And it's definitely not clear to new Linux users WHY multimedia has to be handled as an add-on service.
As far as the spreadsheet and word doc compatibility go, I've never experienced the problems he references. Occaisionally some doc will have a weird font or some minor format problem but overall the translation is pretty good. I swap docs with coporate customers routinely and still manage without really noticing much difference.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A professional construction worker is going to have a wholly different drill in his tool shed than your average home owner.
I suspect if they made Linux easy enough for grandma to use then it would lose something on the other side of the use-case spectrum. I use Linux because I am a software professional and it gives me ultimate control and the tools I need to do my job. I don't want a drill that only goes one speed.
rootsmith Inc.
I wish the writers at Newsforge and such places would take some cues from this article. It is clear, concise, and avoids commonly overused slang and metaphors. What a relief from the usual "Linux switcher" articles.
Mark Golden is a smart guy, and though he doesn't say it, he apparently was comfortable reinstalling Windows on his machine. He did something that is very smart, that most Linux reviewers don't seem to have done. He bought a book. Installing six, count them, six, different Linux distributions shows quite a bit of determination and interest on his part. The interoperability testing he did between office software packages showed some depth as well. Judging from the end of the article, he has been bitten by the "if I just can get this other thing to work under Linux" bug. I would ascertain that he will probably be a Linux hobbyist now.
I appreciate that he didn't go into long paragraphs of complaining about Free Software. It's free, so you are not allowed to complain about it. If you don't like it, use something else. He understands this.
I would say that, as a longtime Unix guy, he has come up with an accurate evaluation of the situation. Common things are easy or at least doable under Unix these days, and most everything else is possible, but only if you are willing to do some work yourself. It is this last catch that is the most frustrating part. As someone who spent a good bit of time this past week breaking C code and tweaking linker knobs, only to fail to make things work, I can readily say that this extra work can often be a bottomless pit. I certainly appreciate the efforts of the wizards who have made the rest easy.
I have long supported the Linux move but unless you have the time to install packages for yourself and tweak all the software to get it to run the way you want, new users are going to have one hell of a time. Things such as installing VLC Media Player and chasing the dependencies is one heck of a task if you don't know what your doing. Thats the hardest part I found and why I keep with XP is becuase of the trouble and time it takes to get the wireless and simple video playback to work right.
It has come a long way but still has a long way to go before it can be come a big player in the desktop market.
Bryan
*raises hand*
I know people are a bit baffled when I say it out loud in mixed society but I don't really know what software's available for Windows, how stuff is setup and so on, nor do I care.
To me Windows is and environment meant to play games at home. So all I have to do is run setup.exe once in a while on a game CD or the latest nVidia driver.
If I was to rip or burn a CD or play a DVD on my plain XP (OEM version of XP Pro bought w/ a motherboard at the time) installation I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start (apart from the obvious googling).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
Linux can be made a desktop replacement, but it requires some willpower:
-Not to burst into tears when some of your hardware doesn't work - just buy another piece.
-Fight you way through the distro jungle to conquer the differences in package management, installers and system configuration.
-Kill the big hairy monster called "the must have Win app". Expect a week's of search for an alternative and another week's desperate configuration of the WINE emulator.
-Master the magical spells like "libdvdcss" and few others to get your multimedia running.
At the end of the journey, you will be exhausted, but, like after a marathon, glowing with happiness and achievement. It's just so nice to be another little pain in Bill Gates' arse.
Then you can send all your friends to the battle as well, by telling them how EASY it is. BWAHAHAAHAHAAA!!!
Skype with webcam is nice. Many people use it. But Linux does not have the video version of skype. Also I don't know which cameras work with Linux and which ones don't.
While I also think hardware support in Linux tends to be much better than in Windows (because Linux has all the drivers built in) there are still many, many devices out there that Linux does not work with at all. On Windows the device manufacturer gives you a crappy driver that will crash your system, but at least as long as the system is running the device works.
It would be very nice to have comprehensive, up to date lists of devices that work with Linux and how to make them work. Everytime I want to make a purchase I need to do extensive research on which one I can buy. And I need to be very precise. One time I bought a wlan card only to find out when I brought it home that it was the wrong revision.
I am sure that comment got already posted but what the heck: If you want to work in Windows and Linux just use Openoffice. Complaining about the lacking MS Office support is rediculous for a number of reasons. First one would be that MS intentionally makes it hard, because it helps to sustain their monopolies.
On all but a small minority of printers has the print output on Linux been on par with Windows. All the inkjet printers that I've tried in Linux in particular the print quality is MUCH WORSE than the Windows driver. This alone would steer me away from using it if I were using Office-like apps all day long. Linux needs to have some work done here, IMO.
We, all of us with few if any exceptions, approach the unknown tentatively and are easily disorientated. I liken it to walking on muskeg, but then I'm Canadian.
I had been on DOS, Windows and NT when I undertook to learn Linux via Mandrake, as it then was, I had no difficulty. If the author of the piece can't edit config files he really shouldn't be "using" any Operating System and would be well left to his Office Suite. The Linux community should key on making OO "just run", along with FireFox and Thunderbird.
You should read Stein just because like a mountain her work is massive and there and provides a unique view.
cheers
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
The problem, yet again, is that most users are "scared" to install an OS from scratch, whether it be XP, Mac OS X or Linux. Hence, this reviewer is comparing a pre-installed Windows system (note he went for an "upgrade" to XP, not an install-from-scratch) with Linux DIY installs. OEMs pile shed-loads of "missing" software with their pre-installed Windows and do testing of their hardware and common peripherals with said pre-install. The same isn't true of most Linux distros (yes, Linspire do this to some extent, but they're the exception to the rule).
I've been through both the XP installer and *many* Linux distro installers from scratch many times and Linux is clearly winning the battle of the installers now. Even the Vista installer doesn't improves things much (in fact, did you know you can't install Vista on top of an ext3-formatted partition? That's done deliberately by MS I reckon - early Vista betas could, but the later ones now don't).
After a from-scratch XP installation, you're left with Wordpad, Paint, IE (arrgh!), Notepad, MSN Messenger and Outlook Express - all *horrible* examples of each of their genre. Out of the box, XP has no office suite, no Photoshop-type program, no programming tools whatsoever, no out-of-the-box support for playing DVDs (yes, the OEM may have installed a DVD player with codecs on your machine, but vanilla XP doesn't!), no anti-virus tools (ironically, you get those for Linux as part of an install when it doesn't really need them unless Linux is config'ed as a mail server for other Windows users) and a weak firewall.
XP has very little support out-of-the-box for modern hardware due to being 5 years old - almost every piece of hardware you buy requires an additonal driver CD (often out-of-date and buggy - forcing you to download a more recent one off each of the manufacturers' Websites). XP also has no central update facility for *all* the software (OS, drivers and applications) you have installed on your system and not every app has auto-update checking built in either to compensate for this major shortcoming.
What XP does excel in is being pre-installed by OEMs (who are locked into volume discount schemes they're terrified of losing if they "upset" Microsoft) and having a lot of games available for it, which is why - along with the dreadful "Teletubbies" default XP theme, I consider XP to primarily be a toy OS. Vista? Well, that's looking like a "shinier Teletubbies" version of XP to me...
I really would love to do that. Maybe I can.
What I wanted to do, but just didn't have the time or energy, was give them both "equal" machines, and give the windows disks to one, and the linux disks to another. of course with the windows disks I'd also have to include MS office disks and a slew of other applications that can be installed natively from linux.
I'd then start the timer and have them make the install. Maybe I'd allow them each 2 questions that they could ask me for assistance in installing.
Would be a pretty good experiment. Time and energy though...of which I have very little.
Don't Tread on Me
I think the users just have to have the patience to go out there and find the multimedia programs.
h tml.
Don't you wonder when someone rates the Linux desktop not fit for the switch because he could not find or work with the found applications? Isn't this article a clear sign which part of the Linux desktop needs our most attention? It's the application which counts most. Go and read this article at LXer.com http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/54009/index.
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
I have a Sony Vaio PCG-FX310 laptop running Suse 10.0/Windows XP dual boot (Linux is the default).
All hardware on this machine is functional under Linux. It's even running a wireless connection with no more configuration that putting in the security settings. Hardware was no big problem.
The big problem is trying to install/update apps. VLC 0.8.5 and Audacity 1.2.4 are still not installed due to an undending dependency hell. I've downloaded and installed the packages that they ask for but am still getting dependecy messages.
For one brief shinging moment I even had DVDs playing on this thing but then some update broke it and I haven't been able to get it back.
Until things like this are cleared up I can't see switching over entirely. No matter how much I dislinke Microsoft (Disclaimer: I used to do support for them and did an internship at their campus).
Someday we'll all look back on this and plow into a parked car.
A switch is doable depending on ...perhaps mostly a combination of patience and skills.
...which becomes a pain in the a** and most businesses don't see the point in switching.
Switching from Windows to Mac OS X is easier than the Linux switch partly because there is MS Office on the Mac in addition to some of the must have Adobe apps. But even that can be a real pain, particularly if you try to switch a small business.
In a number of countries there are maybe only one commercial financial system for SMEs running on Mac and Linux, the rest are Windows only. Meaning you have to run them under Windows in a partition or on a separate machine.
Having localized versions of these systems are crucial for anyone running a business since they always contain legislation and tax rules spesific to each country. So taking a generic F/OSS system off the net is of little use as you have to apply and validate all those rules - something that can be a major and costly undertaking.
The future is in beta
I use the "Mom" test for consumer technology, and so far Linux can't pass it. My mom has no problem with Windows because she's had years to learn it. She has no problems with Mac because it's easier to learn and there are passionate people willing to help. But Linux offers non of the usage patterns she's familiar with, and worse no assistance to newbies. This is the real barrier to adoption. Can you imagine what kind of replies she'd get on forums asking for help? It's not enough to develop code if you're aiming for mass adoption. You need actually helpful help files, consistent use patterns and comprehensive usability engineering. I'm afraid that because no one in the Linux community has the money or apparent interest in non-code related development, that it won't every make it into the mainstream.
This article looks only in one direction. Mark Golden has years and years of Microsoft experience, working with Windows is just what he knows. Its just never easy to swap to a whole different operating system.
But what if you take somebody who has been working with Linux non-stop for 10 years, and has never worked on a Windows machine. Place him before a empty computer with a Windows CD. How easy would that go..?
(Anybody willing to test...? Probably not...)
The switch itself might be hard, but it says nothing about how easy working on Windows or Linux is, just a matter of what they've learned to work with.
Link with intresting discussion:
http://sig9.com/node/269/
My blog: http://www.redcode.nl
It seems as though most people commenting on here USE linux, and I'm not saying all linux users missing the point.
But I think a lot of dedicated/experienced linux users have blinded themselves to the reality of it. I've used Irix/Unix/Linux systems on and off over the last 10 years. And there's no way I'd try and stick my parents onto a linux box. Saying that "my 12 year old uses linux no problem" is also unfair, so don't try that. YOU installed linux for your 12 year old. YOU know how to use linux already.
A lot of people tend to forget that what makes it impossible for a lot of people to switch is the learning curve. Which is the fault of the linux community (developers, designers etc etc), NOT the user. This is an interface/design problem. If I can't pop in a CD hit a few buttons and have a fresh, FULLY WORKING system, 90% of the computing public won't use it. It might be fine for the technically inclined computer users and those that have the time to invest in learning a complex system.
Saying "oh, well, there are drivers and instructions online for doing X or setting up Y" is all fine and good. But why hasn't it been done for me when I installed? Where is my driver/software CD that came with my product to work in linux? I'd be fielding twice as many phone calls asking "ummm, it's doing something weird. Can you fix it?"
Nobody wants to use a terminal. Realistically, it's a very daunting task to have to open a black box and need to type something to get my NIC reset or to see a startup/boot file. For someone who doesn't know linux.
The long and short. He's correct. Linux is not ready for mainstream (not saying that it's not a capable system). But it's useless (in that there are no EASILY visible benefits) to the average joe user who's fine using windows for email.
OSX is also MUCH easier to get into. Everything works out of the box and is ready to go. It's been designed to do so. The Linux community should take note.
With all due respect, your "honest" post isn't really honest at all...
... without having to install 100 different codecs with their bloatware filesharing or media player program that I never ever use.
The free-factor should be reason enough with the evils Microsoft performs. But on top of it being free, the stability of not having things crash for no reason is nice. It's also nice to not have to restart after every update you make, or really it's nice to have to restart only when something seriously wrong happens. Not having to mess about with going to the store, buying a program, then getting home and having to open the package (what a hassle that is >:| ) and then loading some install process where you have to sit there and click Next 50 times is also very nice. Not worrying about viruses and spyware is a nice bonus too.
I can see very many reasons why an average user should switch. I feel bad for your friend that her computer literate friends tell her Linux isn't for her. Also, I've been able to watch flash movies and basically any video format
The big mistake that people like this reporter make is that they expect to just "switch". They don't take into account that doing things in Linux isn't necessarily harder or more difficult it's just different. Usually these people are thinking "I'll just go to Linux" assuming their work process will still be exactly the same.
Well news flash: it doesn't work like that!
When I first switched to Linux I found it frustrating as hell. The same things I found initially complex are now overtly simple. And now that I've been exclusively using Linux for some time I actually find Windows difficult and frustrating to use!
The same goes for an "ordinary" person trying to switch to a mac. I worked in a public computer lab once that had a mac section and I often would take amusement in watching people's expressions as they sat down at the macs and attempted to use them. 99%+ of the people would eventually look some combination of mad / funny / confused / curious, but eventually most of em would get up and walk to a Windows machine.
Is a mac any harder to use? No, of course not. It's all about what you're used to. When you switch to a system that works differently you NEED to be prepared to invest time into learning the new system.
It'd be like buying a new car that doesn't use pedals, guages, and a wheel for controls but rather something alien like maybe sliders, joysticks, and audible tones or something. They both accomplish the same task, and yes some people are better suited to one configuration over another, but generally speaking it's just a matter of training your brain to think in the new way.
Ever tried converting someone who's not very computer savvy to Linux? I have, and generally they love it and catch on right away. Because it's all new to them anyway... whether they sit down at a Windows machine, Mac, Linux, whatever they're in for some learning... they don't have the barrier of expectations bringing them down.
So are we there yet? I say yes. And we have been for some time. People just can't expect to "switch" and not invest in a serious amount of relearning. If it didn't take a lot of time it wouldn't be a different system and therefore it wouldn't be worth switching to!
There are a lot of people that have a use for computers and software that wouldn't have been able to imagine such a need back in the 1990s. Mostly these are older folks that have no life experience with technology, and are struggling to keep up. Thing is, these people are often retired, and therefore have more time for recreational use. This means they want to spend more time using their computer, and less time managing it.
Now, sure maybe they make up a small part of the tech supported economy, but any time now, there are a whole lot of baby boomers retiring in the US. That's gonna shift things a little.
As a developer that used to work on internally managed software (providing a service sold to internet content providers, not off the shelf software sold to customers), I didn't want monkeys monitoring or managing my software - it wasn't intended for idiots to run, it was intended to provide performance oriented content delivery. It required highly technical monitors to analyze any potential problems and provide feedback to development. That's not the case with the ordinary home computer. It's intended to be used by whoever wants to shell out the money for it, not those that can pass a tech savvy quiz.
This is why Microsoft has been so difficult to catch for the Linux/*BSD crowd. There are so many flavors with no standardization to the setup, that just getting off the ground can make an otherwise intelligent person feel like (s)he needs to be tested for Alzhiemers.
What's needed is a truly intuitive interface, and accessibility (don't forget those with disabilities, they're a pretty important slice of the pie too). I have yet to hear of a distribution that lets you drop the CD in and be surfing the web an hour or so later without having to know all the details of your hardware. Hell, some of them require you to know every technical detail of your hardware but the bloody serial numbers.
Now, I've played with Linux quite a lot in the past, and over the last 5 or 6 years, I've used FreeBSD almost exclusively at home. I've also installed more Windows systems than I care to remember, and as much as I hate to say it, the installation and setup is one place where the FOSS community is just nowhere near up to competing with MS.
When that changes, you can bet I'll be getting my Mom to install it just so I can help her figure out what's wrong without having to travel 1500 miles for tech support or buy some expensive software to do it remotely, or try to figure out what "that thingy at the bottom of the screen" really means.
Now, this isn't to knock the FOSS developers. They're a bunch of very dedicated folks that work very hard, often with no fungible compensation for their efforts. Often they are missing out on things they'd rather be doing to make their systems better. They aren't getting paid to make it monkeyproof. They're trying to make a better OS or a better peice of software. Not a better installation or recovery process.
Does anyone know of a project that really focuses on the installation and configuration of their distribution? I don't. There are some, obviously that go above and beyond other distributions, but not one can yet compete with Windows or MacOS X.
There are other issues, like support availability - which is more a percieved issue (FUD) than a real issue, but those are minor.
The overall image of FOSS amongst the technically unsavvy is one of technical incomprehensibility, which can be managed, but there aren't many PR departments in the FOSS community.
I'm sure there are people still more in touch with the current situation than I am that understand these issues better than I, and are probably aware of more hurdles than I am, but these folks aren't PR people or venture capitalists, so they can't fix the problems any better than I can. What can be done is for those familiar with interface accessibility, installation, and configuration to step up and push harder in those areas. It's not as glorious as kernel development or GUI develpoment, but it's just as important.
... and happy to boot (catch the double meaning? :)
It's obvious that Linux is not ready for home use. It's not that way how it's going to happen (if it ever happens).
First you get the servers, or a good deal of them.
Then you get the easy workstations, the ones that need just e-mail, internet, and a decent office suite. And are deployed by the hundreds in a single organization so the savings in licenses and support are big.
Then and only then, you get some big organization to decide to stop being an slave and change to support internally only open formats for document transfer, like pdf, html, open office format, etc. That will be the hardest bit, and we are not there yet.
Afterwards, there will be some real competition, and it's difficult to know who will win (when Microsoft really start caring for its users as a response to slipping sales, there will certainly be a fight worth looking at). But at least the landscape will be a bit more interesting.
In the end the present situation cannot last forever. It has a lot of inertia, certainly. But the dominant player is not taking real care of its customers, and for the first time there are some real alternatives. The end is not near, but the end of the beginning is just around the corner.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
Seriously, what real developments have Mac OS X and Windows seen in the past 5 years? They're too shackled to the idea of a consumer-friendly OS to incorporate the best and latest.
So he's probably never instlled Windoze as almost every brand computer comes pre-intalled with it. I have just installed both Windows XP SP2 and Fedora Core 5 on two PCs with the same specs. Both installed easily. For Linux I chose KDE for my desktop environment, was immediately able to surf the web, read emails, OPEN & EDIT Micro$oft Orifice Docs using Open Office without a hitch. Then I wanted to update to make sure I had all the latest security patches. Windows : had to run the updated twice. Sat through waiting to be told what I needed, then had to select the patches, on some had to wait while I agreed to some EULA then let it run. Then bounce it wanted me to bounce the PC and if I didn't I kept getting an annoying window appears warning me to do it. Fedora 5: Opened a shell (easy in KDE, just right click on the desktop and select the console) types "yum -y update" no bouncing, no questions, all automatic. Oh, and to make it better for those who need a GUI everything, I installed Yumex with a simple "yum -y install yumex", now I have a package installer that will not only let me install software, but will update it when necessary and it even has a GUI. With windows there isn't much that will check to see if you have dependencies, what usually happens is an installer will have to come with the additional software it depends on and may evn make you reboot half way through so it can get the dependent software running before it installs. Now onto videos... Windows couldn't play AVI's properly, had to find a DIVx download and install it. Linux, found the RPM repo used yum and installed in minutes. The guy must have very little intelligence if he felt that Linux on the desktop was too difficult..... but then he is a reporter.... nuff said.
Linux, either passes on things it can't install, says they are there but there is no driver, or goes with the generic one-size-fits-all driver and goes no further configuring it.
A little bit more interactivity to adding/changing/configuring hardware would not hurt Linux.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Let me know when I can play the Half-Life and Unreal Tournament series games on Linux. Thanks.
Or a Debian junkie; apt-mirror; apt-get update;apt-get upgrade -y on unstable.
The Point & Click book is pretty good. I used that on my first foray in the world of Linux.
the ability to play most of the popular games today. Yeah, I know, it's possible to get them all to work in Wine or Cedega, but with limited success. When I attempted to make the switch from Windows to Linux, that's what brought me back. Dual-booting is such a pain in the ass, it's not even worth it. There are replacements to most important Windows applications, but not games.
None of the above problems are related to Linux per se. It didn't crash, didn't catch a virus, didn't hang, didn't lack any programs or utilities (including Solitaire), all programs worked, etc.
You would think a journalist would do his research before starting to write...
You would think a journalist would be able to distinguish between "Linux not being an easy to use operating system" and "Linux not being supported by manufacturers".
You would think a journalist would know what "you cannot distribute proprietary or copyrighted work without permission" meant...
Still, his last word "Claims by some Linux publishers that anybody can easily switch to Linux from Windows seem totally oversold." seems correct to me. I don't know anyone who is willing to install an Operating System without the accompanying "Driver and Software Recovery CD"...
I used to use Linux (RedHat 7->Mandrake something->backandforth->RedHat 7.3->Debian->Linux From Scratch until end of last year), but I've switched to OS X on two of my boxen (server+powerbook), and stayed with Windoze on the other two. Occasionally I'll fire up a BSD or Ubuntu in VMware Server if I need that.
I have trouble justifying why I should bother ever going back for desktop use.... No, I don't have spyware. No, my virus infection count over the past few years has been so low its not even worth running a virus scanner (backup backup backup and reinstall if things blow up). No, I don't have any Windows boxen on the public interwebs. So, security isn't a justication... Can I fire up a live cd and do something without reaching to bash for some manual ifconfig when dhclient fails? Oops..... Why am I bothering to change something which works so well? Hmm, because I'm pissed off with William H Gates the 3rd? Lame reason.
Infact, it could be said the only selling points for Desktop Linux are:
* Cost
* Security
* Err................... its not Microsoft?
* Some features buried deep down in programs which you probably don't need?
You'll have to try better marketing than that guys.
I don't think Open Source is really going to take over the world. You might be able to borg all the home PC's, but Open Source itself isn't going to get you across the line in big corporate buy decisions - a better product will. Something the zealots have to realize...
IMO Baby Boomers suck at computing because:
* Massive paranoia, not willing to risk it exploring their OS on their own
* Too much brand association.
To use a bad analogy: You all seem to approach power drills as if every time you get a new drill you need to train yourself with how to use said drill again, even if its 99% similiar to the old one. While the majority of RMSdot will disagree, thats how I've seen people older than me handle computing.
On the other hand, young'uns are good, not because they grew up with it, but they are willing to explore whatever and not think about what will happen if it goes wrong.
Actually, the Unreal Tourniment and Doom series of games run NATIVELY on Linux. I know because I play onslaught in UT2004 all the time using Linux! If you want to play Half-life games, use Cedega.
Meh.
The article gives a useful appraisal of Linux for anyone wanting to try it as a desktop OS. For the reasons given in this article we use Linux on our compute server and OS X on our desktops. The combination of OS X and Linux works well and we believe that is a lower hassle/cost solution for our needs than using Windows for everything.
The authors implicit belief that Windows gives easy compatibility and ease of use is a socially acceptable belief that is not based on the realities of Windows use. On a typical Windows desktop there is almost always something inexplicably malfunctioning. These malfunctions regularly swallow gobs of time and/or support staff. On top of that, using the Windows interface is like walking in shoes with a little bit of sand in them. The shoes look fine and are arguably as good as any others but you can't get the sand out and wearing them generates an ambient stress level that the user mistakenly comes to ignore/accept as the price for wearing shoes.
I often hear Windows and Office users say that they have "no problems" using these products. A threshold of pain that high can only be achieved through the removal of most of the nervous endings via the wallet.
... his issues were on getting a Linux distribution working as reliably and predictably as Windows would on a given box.
Unless I missed something in TFA, it wasn't a matter of pressing the right buttons that were in a different place or a different color - it was getting generally acceptable stuff (end user day in day out work) to go as expected.
I'm not sure "lazy" swould be the correct adjective - it looks like he exhausted a lot of things before he reached a frustration level. Everyone picks the frustration level they want, his looks like his is non-zero and possibly above average.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
With an Intel Mac's you get the best of both worlds and if you can boot into Windows to play games ...
Comment removed based on user account deletion
But you can't make him drink.
It's a fact that most people don't like straying from their comfort zone. No matter how "idiot proof" something is, someone will build a better idiot.
That's not to say the WSJ reporter was an idiot, far from it, he brings up many valid points. I personally use LINUX all the time on the back end... but I don't at the desktop and in particular, at home.
I'm simply not interested in screwing around with things to get multimedia functions to work on my desktop, especially as new revs of apps are released. This seems to be the crux of his issues, outside of MS Office compatiblity... and in that regard, Mac OS X would do just fine... way better than LINUX anyway.
-M
to RTFM!!!!
The statement in my message subject will surely rub some Linux and Mac faithful the wrong way ... but I don't see how a logical pesonal can deny it. I'm primarily a Mac user myself these days, but use quite a bit of Windows between my PC at work and the occasional use of an Athlon 64 at home (mainly for gaming these days), and I deal with Linux here and there too. (I built my own MythTV box, and our proxy server at work is a Linux-based system I set up with Dansguardian, etc.)
In my opinion, every OS has its good and bad. Just as a good mechanic won't try to get all of his work done with only one tool, a good systems administrator or smart consumer won't assume that there's only one OS that meets *all* of his needs.
But that being said, "majority rules" when you're talking about computer training and the average user's knowledge of computer usage. Windows has so much market-share, it's the platform someone has experience with 9 times out of 10, if you pick a random person who claims some computer literacy and ask them what they're familiar with.
For this reason, Apple is smart to embrace as many Windows technologies as they can (things like Active Directory and Microsoft's networking protocols via Samba), and to keep the basics of the GUI somewhat similar to Windows.
I think part of the Linux community realizes this too, of course. (Heck - look at the Windows look-likes they've grafted on top of the X Windowing environment!) But at the end of the day, the "out of the box" experience for users trying to get the OS to recognize and properly use all of their hardware is key.
Mac users are generally very pleased with OS X because it all "just works" from the time they power on their new Macs. Windows, these days, gives largely the same initial experience. You bring home your new Dell or HP, power it on, and XP starts right up - properly using all of your devices. Linux, however, is usually lacking in this area. You can't often buy systems pre-loaded with a Linux distro that's pre-configured to find everything on the machine and use it 100% properly. But even if you do, you might get stuck as soon as you add another devices. (EG. Throw your new USB scanner into the mix, and will Linux auto-detect it and use it "plug and play"? Possibly... but how do you make it work? Do practically all of your applications have a "Scan" selection on their pull-down menus that automatically realizes your new scanner is installed? In OS X or XP, yes, they would.)
The problem isn't that people aren't willing to learn something "different." The problem with linux is that it just can't keep up with new technology that people want. Despite releasing new versions of all the popular distributions much more frequently than windows, somehow windows is still ahead of the curve. I bought a new laptop specifically to use as a linux workstation about a year ago, because I wanted to learn how things worked. I tried fedora and had no success detecting my CD burner, so after a while I switched to Ubuntu. It's a very nice distro but there are too many things that need to be manually configured to handle common everyday tasks, or just don't work at all. I had to reconfigure firefox and my audio system to view flash movies. Even after setting that up it seemed like it would sometimes randomly break. WPA simply is not supported properly yet; wpa_supplicant seems to work for some people but I sure couldn't get it running. I now think I know what my problem was, but it took me an entire afternoon of editting config files and playing with my router config to do what windows can do with a simple prompt. I like the iTunes music store, but like almost every commercial application, it simply isn't supported in linux. Running Ubuntu, my laptop locked up on me very often; that hasn't happened once in XP. Finally after months and months of using my nice new laptop only on weekends when I had hours to play with config files and dig around forums, I decided to wipe it and install XP so I could actually be productive with the thing. You can call this guy lazy and unable to adapt, but the fact is that (from the distros I have seen) linux is simply not a stable OS for anyone who intends to use modern technologies and wants to spend more time actually using their machine than reconfiguring it.
Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch *nux for Windows? No!!!
I like my *nix distros as they come. Vanilla Fedora with Gnome is good enough for me. Any other valilla distro is fine with me. I believe I could even get to appreciate Solaris and Java desktop.
And don't let me have to configure twm because I cannot be bothered.
So, I'm an ordinary PC User and I wouldn't know what to do on a Windows box. I would have a hard time running Cygwin just to have a normal shell. Also, the Windows path names make me feel uncomfortable. I would have a problem ditching *nix.
So the other way around is identical. Only a few weeks ago, my sister-in-law remarked that I should make the leap and try Windows...
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
No. Next question...
Ask me about my sig!
...because they simply do not care about computers and just use it because their job requires them to.
How many times have you heard "I don't care about computers, lol"
Only us geeks care about what we're running because we are informed and have seen the light
We know linux is the way to go and are willing to spend an extra minute or two getting it "just right"(tm).
It's a much older reference than that.
It often comes down to familiarity and support.
Some hardware is well supported by an OS, some isnt. The advantage MS has is that hardware manufacturers will doo all the tweaking, tuning and loading of horribly bloated software (sorry, couldn't resist) before the user presses the "On" switch.
Someone trying out an alternetive OS (BSD, Linux etc) will often face the unpleasany prospect of doing this themsleves.
Combined with the fact that they will have to troubleshoot in a new environment with unfamiliar conevntions, it's understandable how people come to the conclusion "Linux is difficult" and "Linux has crappy hardware support".
But if a company that sold PCs with Linux pre-installed, pre-configured I'm sure you'd find those users claiming how smoothly their system runs and how they've never had any problems.
By the way, Linux's suitability as a primary OS is still fairly circumstantial. There's no point denying that in some areas it loses in the "Feature tick-box" race. But I don't think it's "worse than Windows" in any way, just that due to it's nature there's more exposure to the dark arts of hardware configuration. Windows has it's share too, but it's normally dealt with by a stranger on a factory floor somewhere...
"...So I hung back and lurked. For 18 months. Can't beat a good old-fashioned lurking."
I am a cook by profession... and i am going to school to be an xray-tech. I started using linux @ 6 yrs ago when i got tired of win98se. When xp came out i just said to myself..why should i buy another yugo?? I started with mandrake.. went than to redhat..than tried slack..which i liked.. but was too geek intensive..tried( and hated fedora) and finally have been running Ubuntu( i know you dont want to hear about it) since warty..and am now running the dapper pre-release. I use my computer for papers(OO.org and AbiWord) presentations(OO.impress) pr0n..email and the like. When I ran that well known OS.. I spent hours every week, tweaking my antivirus.. and firewall.. and adware..and spyware programs. Not to mention keeping litestep going because i hated the win98 gui. Now i pretty much can use my computer for work. I have no real prollems with multimedia.. well..no worse than with win 98.. so.. i think that the idea that using lunix is too hard is pretty much B.S. Btw.. Im 50 yrs old in october.. so no.. im not one of those slick quick to learn kiddies.
for my personal use the computer must run my games.
I know, there is wine and cedega, bu I don't wnat to tune a lot of stuff to play my f*&^ing game, I want the "next" "next ", "next", "finish" approach.
I use linux to do some serious stuff at work, where I'm paid to spend my time this way.
Spending an afternoon making the OS work is not my definition of "fun".
ps: I tried to install linux at home several times, there is allways one thing that doesn't wok, video capture, video board, network, etc...
They should know better than to post a story on Slashdot that smells at all like sombody is being negative toward Linux. I think the basic idea everybody seems to forget here is the actual reason most of us "in the know" folks like to be positive about Linux rather than windows. Here are a few reasons:
1.) Open source, community developped vs. Closed, corporate monolith evil empire, Darth Gates.
2.) User-configurable internals vs. Pre-defined locked core system (only illusionary, mind you.)
3.) Free-ness vs. Not-so-free-ness.
I think the general thing alot of people don't discuss out of fear for sounding like they are speaking against their ideals are real world issues. While we like to judge operating environments and software on Slashdot based on the above pointers, this article attempts to shift the focus to some different judging ideas:
1.) Useability / Difficulty.
2.) Interoperability / Being the odd man.
3.) Capability / Shortcomings.
4.) Grandmother factor.
5.) Hardware support.
Let's talk seriously about Linux useability. It seems like distro's and folks that make UI's for linux focus more on making the basic "this is what you see when you boot" look and feel alot like Windows. The point is, it should be different. Stop trying to make Windows users feel comfortable for the first few minutes of use (the way the shit looks) and focus on putting more usefulness into it. Why the hell is it that when I load windows, 90% of the time I don't have a display driver Windows knows the approximate capabilities of my card and at least gives me a native resolution? Why is it when I install Ubuntu on my laptop with a wifi card, it just takes a fat shit on itself? Why is it if you jump on freenode and hop into the Ubuntu channel, it takes 12 hours of fighting to get a peice of hardware to even initialize (it still won't work) where as when you go into the Windows channel you are treated to hours of silence, and when the silence is finally broken it's "does anybody know why I can't un-set read only on an NTFS volume?". I think you can prove this point by simply examining the way people doll out help. I know this issue has been brought up before, Linux users don't like to help alot of the time because it's a god-damn loosing battle. They get snippy with me, or anybody else who asks for help setting up a wifi card simply because even after a few hours they know in their heart of hearts it's probably still not going to work.
Ok, so you are probably thinking "Wahh, it's because hardware manufacturers blah blah blah..". You know what? You are absolutely right. Let's take a sound card manufacturer for example. These people set up a callcenter that they pay per call, or based on volume/staffing. If the same rules apply to tech support for online help (IRC, Forums) then it would apply to users calling tech on the phone right? What company do you know of wants to staff an ENTIRE secondary callcenter with techs, have all of them with call handle times measured in HOURS, only to discover "well, it's a kernel limitation" or "I think the issue is with your DM." It's not that hardware manufacturers don't care enough about Linux to write a driver, IMHO I think it's because they dont want to open another can of worms.
So, you want to talk about usability and differences, thats great. The only way Linux is going to be competitive in this world, IMHO is if all the people who are in the upper eschelon of coding rent / buy a huge amount of land somewhere, build a 10 million SQ-FT building, take up offices, and COLLABORATE.
Being able to charge for your operating system guarantees a certain amount of quality, through accountability. Linux dev's will always have the ability to abandon the end user simply because the dev's don't owe them jack shit.
Last point, I wonder what would happen if Bill Gates found a way to fi
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
The Idiot box is the Television set, okay?
i re
all you want - call it Linux for People...Linux for idiots...call it
what you want.
You place the user in front of a TV, the user turns it on
and watches TV for hours, just like the average Joe out there.
What's that got to do with Linux you might ask?
Answer: Everything! Windows = Idiotbox, it works, it has got excactly what the neighbours got. Mr. Johansen the worker bee knows it and so does his beer drinking buddy Mr. Svanson.
Svanson and Johansen are good friends, they exchange DVD's and when Johansen bought a game for his kid - naturally...Svansons kid gets a copy.
When Johansen is online doing some home-banking, he's expected to use Internet-Explorer by the bank (god knows why..but just humor me) it works!
Svanson got the idea that Linux must be all the rage because he heard someone using it somewhere and he got a free cd, he lost all his data being the average schmoe he is...and forgot to back up. Oh well.. he's in Linuxland now and all's well.
Johansen! This is Svanson here, guess what? I've installed Linux! Johansen doesnt really give a sh*t but being Svansons beer-buddy he hops on over to share some DVD's. What the H*ll? The DVD isn't playing. Whats this? Linux? Yeah...it needs some sort of DeeeeCeesssS something... (gulping beer).. What? You nerding now? F*ck this.. I've got better things to do Saturday night, remove that crap and lets see some movies.
Now... this was just an example, take it from me - I've been using Linux for over 8 years now (10 maybe)... and I've only got Linux installed on ALL my computer. But it has taken quite some years and quite some HAIR-pulling to get anything to do what I want for my creature comforts...mp3 support, DVD region-free playbacks, Nvidia-3D gaming, Audigy-2 support, Obscure-web-cams, IN-Sane scanners etc.... not to mention the night that it took to get the new WIDE-Screen 1680-1050 up and running with editing etc/X11/xorg.conf with an entirely new modeline with numbers enough to scare the bajezuz outta "Svanson".
And you know what? Slashdotters had the very same discussion 5 years ago - and probably will the next 5....and...5...and...5 and so on.
Because Linux will NEVER be for the ORDINARY MAN - ever!
You can candy-wrap Ubuntu-PCLinux,LinSpire,WinSpire,GIN-and-tonic-Sp
Linux is TOO radically different from the "Average-Joe-mindset".
In Linux you're expected to do stuff by THINKING...and no matter
how SMART you and I make the systems.... won't help Poor Svanson.
My point is essentially this: If you make Linux the Idiot-Box
Linux won't be Linux anymore, you've cloned Windows.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Sheesh. My so-called sense of humor is now considered trolling? I knew I should have added a smiley. :)
Ask me about my sig!
Good luck you found it. If your in luck it is an .ini What do you open that with anyway? Why ain't it associated? Why isn't the .cfg?
Oops it is in the registry. What do those extremely long random strings mean? Why do I need to write stuff down in hex?
BRING OUT THE CAR ANOLOGIE
We have had cars now for well over a hundred years. All that time there has been a need to unlock the hood and a need to lean over a often still hot filty engine to do extremely basic maintenance.
WHY isn't the fill point for water, window washing liqued, perhaps even oil in a more accesible place?
Because people have learned to deal with it and so nobody in his right mind complains about it. But think about it for a sec. WHy do you have to come that close to the engine of your car to tip up the window washing liqued? After all the access point for the fuel isn't under the boot hatch is it?
But at least under linux there is some logic. Desktop program got two config files. A generic one that is just for everyone in /etc/ and a specific one for you in your homedir. How to find it? Well find the name of your program and 99% of the time the config file will named after it.
It really ain't that hard provided you are just willing to experiment.
Just like real life. I sometimes build stands for exhibitions. There is always time to check out the rest of the stands. Then you have two kinds of people. Those who wonder what something is/does and those who ask/push the button. Yes I have had an entire stand flash up and sirens go off at me but at least I knew that those displays of sirens and lights really worked. Nobody minded because the security guard had been wondering what it looked like himself.
Same with computers. JUST TRY!
Windows is for people that wonder how deep sea divers take a leak. Linux is for the kids who ask and learn they were diapers.
Mac OS-X? Probably for the people that fancy sailors.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's sort of hard to picture someone not being able to figure that out.
In college I made a few attempts at running linux. It was no probelm to crank out papers, or use math software etc on linux, but I found it was often easier to run linux on a seperate box, because when game time came, I could not get the performance. years later I still like to kill the occasional nazi zombie horde. This is still much easier to do on a windows pc. At work mc office dominates the workday. Even when I was in the ops room, there were seperate windows pc's for reports etc. The Unix systems were for production only.
Hello! If you find documents that AbiWord can't open, and have a moment to spare to help us improve it, please file a bug at http://bugzilla.abisource.com/ and attach the document (or the document with all personal information removed, or if it's confidential, it can be emailed to one of the devs after you file the bug). That way, AbiWord can be ready for your production use - it already is ready for production use for many people.
Thanks!
-- Ryan, AbiWord Win32 maintainer and developer
I recognize people by their sigs. Is that a bad thing?
The first divx or xvid or theora or mkv or ogg file that comes along and windows bites the dust.
Thank you for playing.
Oh you downloaded and installed all the needed codecs on windows. How old fashioned. On linux you just do emerge or apt-get and that is it. All codecs in one. No spyware problems either wich apperently exist with a lot of windows codec packs.
On forums where vids are posted it is a constant topic where I am asked wich codec a vid uses since they can't play it and I am forced to reply that I don't know. I use linux, it just works.
Video playback is the one area linux beats windows handsdown.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
From what I understand, "Ordinary Users" should be fine with Linux. It's when they attempt to step out of the box that they can run into trouble - editing video, say. Or, trying to convert documents for use with Office. The two things mentioned in the article as being problematic just happen to be the two things left on the list for Linux to solve.
The first on the list will be taken care of as soon as someone releases a video package that's as comprehensive as Audacity is for audio.
The second on the list, Office interoperability looks like it's headed for a showdown very soon as a result of MS's legal battles in the UK.
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
It's time for another installment of: can you guess the year?
We give you 3 newspaper headlines and you try to guess the year. Ready?
1) Renewed tensions in the middle east spark violence
2) Republican accused of ethics violations
3) Gas prices could rise says analyst
4) Linux still to complicated for the avg user.
Can you guess the year?
If the user (any user) is tired of the status quo, there are alternatives available. There's OS-X, BSD and Linux. Switching from Windows to any of these will not be without some pain -- that's clearly by design.
If one isn't prepared to work around some of these issues, then it might not make sense to change. Staying with Windows is an acceptable course of action.
In fact, I'd rather Windows users stay where they are, rather than switch to Linux and complain. It's kind of like the New Englanders coming to Florida and complaining about how "that's not the way we do it up North!"
Unless you have an absolute need for Linux or are a hobbiest there is really no reason to run it if you already have a PC with Windows on it. The average Joe just isn't going to make the switch. Please get over it.
'Same speed C but faster'
It really is the learning curve. I have my dad using Fedora, and he doesn't have any problems with it. He usually has an easy time finding whatever he is looking for - the only thing he's ever missed is that he can't install a certain Windows-only picture program. Granted, he only transfers simple Office documents over, and uses the computer mainly for email, the internet, printing, and simple games. But my dad is a very non-techie person. He hates computers and before getting this computer when my parents got divorced, never really used one. So when I installed linux for him, he wasn't yet familiar with Windows. I've led my dad though setting up a user account, installing his (not-natively-supported) printer, and it has been easy and painless. So this experience has really convinced me that a lot of the problems people face is based in their familiarity with Windows.
A PC for people without any training or experience whatsoever should have:
* Voice recognition, so the user can yell at and curse the machine with comfort
* AI intelligent enough to handle stupid questions and demands
* The always handy CD-drive so the user can use it as a coffe-mug support...
* one-button mouse for those compulsive M$-geared next-clickers...
* VR 3D-glasses rather than a monitor, so that users can imerse themselves into a 3D desktop and search for files and other resources scattered all over in dark, messy 3D labyrinths filled with daemons, trojans and other plagues... good thing you have your handy BFG with you...
I don't feel like it...
I was going to say a similar thing about wireless. Now I've never used Linux except RH8 a long time ago but that was only trying to install on my PC and it wouldn't even install so I gave up. I was watching Call For Help, Tech TV's show about technology and computers and whatnot, and they had their Linux guru on. He said that you can't even connect to a wireless network unless you know the exact SSID. Yes you can download a program, but I couldn't imagine why this wasn't built into the OS. OS X, it's just up in the tool bar and Windows will automatically show you all the wireless networks, but Linux can't even do that? Having not used it myself I can't corroborate but this guy was the linux guy so I tend to believe him.
Then there was the fact that linux didn't support his wireless card but he was able to use the Windows inf file to get it to work. But the reason that I was saying "WTF" was he had to edit some config file to get it to load the inf ever time it booted. How can anyone expect for a noob to do anything like that?
This slightly misses the point. The point is not that *installing* Windows works across the board nearly all the time, because most users never install it - they buy it on their machine. The computer as a whole works out of the box, not just the OS.
Only when computers are sold with Linux pre-installed, and everything already works without having to do anything, will Linux begin to take hold with ordinary users.
I thing this is just a convienent excuse for people who are afraid to change because it is outside their comfort zone. People will spend hours fixing their windows computer (and rebooting it 14 times!) but when they have to spend time to fix their Linux box, they throw their hands in the air and say it's too complicated.
If it's dead, you killed it.
I know this is slightly off-topic (the question is "Ordinary Users and Linux?", not "Why do You Like Linux?") but the reason I try to do as much as possible with Linux is because I don't like the feeling of my software being "leased" from some company whose End User License requires me to basically sign over part ownership of my computer in order to run it.
99% of the stuff I install (with yum/rpm) does not come with a pop-up license box asking me to agree to several paragraphs of legalese. I know there's licenses attached (GPL, etc), but rarely do I have to explicitly click on an agreement in order to use the software.
I can only hope that Microsoft's slavish desire to be Hollywood's water boy (by crippling/burdening their software with DRM) will cause more people to try an alternative.
MjM
XKCD:Xeric Knowledge Comically Dispen
I completely agree maybe since I'm a developer myself. I just built a new computer based on a Asus A8N-VM CMS (superb board), installed WindowsXP and set up my multiboot environment (XFDisk). Then I installed Ubuntu 5.10 except neither network nor graphic worked. At least the console mode was working. Okay then I tried Ubunto Dapper Beta which as a live CD works flawlessly but after installation the system didn't boot from the harddisk. So I now have to figure out why the older Ubuntu boots but not the newer. I guess the Grub boot loader is missing but still how could that happen?
O. Wyss
See http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html
I am a graphic designer and creative director. I have been looking into Ubuntu, Fedora and Novell as possible replacements to Windows for over a year. The problem is two-fold.
...sorry I have to reboot or my system will crash - thanks Bill Gates.
First; software compatibility. No Photoshop, Illustrator, Quark or any of the "mainstream" software necessary to send files to printers/clients.
Secondly, the "holier-than-thow" attitude towards new users. I am a reasonably technical person, but with poor manuals and instructions on the basic usage (i.e. installation of new software, hardware, command-line workability, etc.) and the ever increasing attitude of the so-called experts telling people like me to go back to windows makes for a very difficult migration.
We all want to get a away from the Microsoft dominated world and work in a more open environment, but Linux and it's communities need to be more "user friendly".
I still want to make the switch but at present, I am stuck with the Microsoft world.
I think the complaint many OSS advocates have is in many respects OSS is plain better but still companies refuse to listen to reason and pre-stall Windows.
If all the "average user" does is browse the web and check email there is no reason why a Linux based distro with Gnome couldn't fulfill that.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I tried Ubuntu a bit ago and the network was fine, but I never could get the sound working. A friend worked on it and finally got it running, but it wouldn't play anything from streaming audio. I can't remember if video went above 1024 or not as I'm happy at 1024.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux?>
No. The author hits the issue right on the head. The challenge is interoperability. Sure, sit a computer novice down in front of a Linux PC, and if it's the first technology/OS that they learn, they'll probably be able to send and receive e-mail, surf the Web, and create a simple document or spreadsheet. Great.
The challenge with Linux is that you can't easily deal with document interchange. Yes, I've used OpenOffice.org for years now. I'm sorry, but there are still challenges between opening a *.doc file in OpenOffice.org that your 'average' computer user may not be able to overcome.
The burden for overcoming this challenge, IMHO, seems to be placed on the shoulders of GNU/Linux mainly because they're viewed as the 'outsider' technology (meaning in the minority). Not, that's not fair, but what the heck is?
XP: What's different about this? No really, what did they add? Why is this worth my money?
OSX: I like that its cute, but they moved everything so I can't find it.
Linux: I tried to install [[distro X]] but hit a snag when it wouldn't work with my [[video card/goofy legacy system/mouse]]...I don't think I'm smart enough to use Linux.
These are by a wide margin the most common responses I get from "Joe User" in regards to the "big 3" consumer operating systems.
barack to the future?
Windows Media Player already plays DVD's, right out of the box. This comes with windows. No need to install a DVD player.
Linux needs this same ease of use.
A PC pre-installed w/linux is a good idea but the user still faces the basic problem of file interoperability. .xls .ppt).
Simply put, OpenOffice cannot handle anything outside the most basic file-type (.doc
Until linux moves from the "hardcore, holier-than-thou, uber-techie" paradigm, it will always be behind Windows.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
Excel Spreadsheets have become the COBOL of our generation.
Sounds to me like he is on target when it comes to certain high level functions working as expected with a Linux desktop.
I have Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux desktop PC's in my home. My 10 and 13 year old daughters have been able to easily sit down in front of any of them and use them within minutes. Finding things like Web browsing, IM, email, and Word processing is easy enough for children on any of these systems, and they are sufficiently alike to support this.
Where Linux falls over is just the sort of things the reviewer was pointing out. If you click on a video in a web page, and it does not play, or there is no sound, then my 10 year old daughter is not going to be able to fix this on any OS. The trouble with Linusx is that this scenario happening is probably an order of magnitude more likely on Linux than on a Windows PC. Maybe twice as likely on Linux as on a Mac. And, compounded by the fact, that if you do want to try to fix an issue like this, it tends to require a lot more skill to fix it with Linux (not that it is always trivial on a Windows or Mac machine).
Ditto the above for Linus when it comes to something like sharing office documents, or setting up Wi-Fi networking, or connecting to my Bluetooth phone (all of which come really easily with a Mac).
The picture these days is really simple:
Most Impressive Desktop - Mac OS X
Most Impressive Server - Linux
Most Likely to Slowly Lose Market Share - Windows
...which are, by their very nature, much more fiddly than the average desktop install.
Example: IBM 600e. IBM had the bright idea to put three chips on the mobo that look to Linux like sound cards. And moreover, the sound card chip is only addressable as a ISA module even though you need to use emulation of a PCI interface chip to kick it over. And worst of all, the chip gives a different ID than it's supposed to, thanks to an error in manufacturing at Cirrus Logic. Windows 2000 finds it and kicks it over because IBM let Microsoft know about the quirks of this particular chip. However, Linux has a beastly time because it assumes that the chip is reporting its identity correctly. In order to kick the chip over, you have to rmmod the wrong driver and insmod the correct driver AFTER EVERYTHING ELSE LOADS. Including your Graphical User Interface.
The IBM 600x was a partial redesign, and so you don't have the sonic fiddliness. However, there is fiddliness with video. You have to edit the X.org or XFree86 configuration file to get the video to display at the native resolution of 1024 x 768. That's not intuitive.
Modern lappies are equally finicky, particularly those with newer ATI video chipsets. Intel video and NVidia video is fine, but the ATI open source drivers aren't quite there yet, and the binary blob drivers are flaky and tend to cause showstopper crashes of a type you don't see with just about any other kind of driver. NVidia's binary blob drivers actually work, which no doubt pisses RMS off but is OK for almost everyone else. And Intel, bless its heart, actually does a F/OSS driver for its onboard video chips.
If you want an effortless, uneventful Linux install, build a dog-standard white box desktop. Stay away from newer ATI chipsets and stick with NVidia onboard or on-card video or Intel onboard video. Use a PATA disk as your boot drive, and leave SATA for other storage and for your swap. Use your onboard sound or a standard name-brand sound card.
Trying to install and tweak Linux on a laptop is not for noobs. This was an unfair test. Fuck the article, it's FUD, pure and simple.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Sure there are repositories which do an excellent job for 90% of things, but when it comes to those other 10% of programs that aren't in the repositories, there is trouble. My experience with Ubuntu is that by the time many people feel like they are ready to try linux they are windows power users and have started to use some obscure programs. In windows, all you have to do is download an oddball program and doubleclick. On linux? I've no idea. I've looked up instructions before and I've installed things from the terminal before, but I just cut and pasted commands. Why can't you just double click and install every program? So that and the fact that I play a lot of games means that although I'm dual booting Ubuntu and Windows, I haven't booted into Ubuntu in months. I really like the idea of using Linux as my main operating system, but I can't devote the time and energy to make that dream a reality. Life gets in the way.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
The line: "Like the other Linux distributions, though, Xandros had problems viewing some online video files, playing DVDs and downloading pictures from my digital camera" really hits home for the average Joe. I wonder how many of their ears perked up at this line: "Generally, open-source software can't legally play encrypted DVDs in the U.S."
That second one is a better clue to the real "problems" Linux has with these things.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
If you want a system that is functionally identical to Microsoft Windows, there is a large company in Redmond, Washington that supplies one. I think they call it "Microsoft Windows", or something like that.
On the other hand, if Windows doesn't suit you and you want to try something different, then you may want to consider other operating systems. Linux may be a good choice in this case.
Well as someone learning windows for a job that has that as a condition of employment after being hooked on MacOS since time: It aint easy to forget all that you know.Their are quite a few things that you get used to doing. meta-right click/controll click to save a web pick. etc. -Windows-Linux or any other flavor of unix migration is probably the same way: forget anything you know. One of the problems that keeps coming up with Linux migration-be it with RPMS or Deb I have encountered is a non-trivial software maintence. Sure it has an emence uber-geek appeal to compile-home all the compile flags are set right. Then hope some idiot didn't forget something etc. etc. etc. On the desktop side stick with KDE/Gnome- I'm partial to KDE because it's what I know. Gnome I'm sure is good. Their aren't any games-no Wine doesn't count-if I have to emulate windows WTF was the point of doing something different? Thier's also a long laundery list of outstanding problems-PDA syncing and other day-to-day creature comforts the unix comunity hasn't resolved yet. I don't see how anyone can seriously give up windows completely untill their resolved.
I do agree with the author of the article. I can not imagine my mom switching away from her current windows environment to linux without any troubles. However, I can't imagine her finding a decent app to play video's with in windows either. My mom learned to work with windows, and that's all she can do... work with windows.
However, a friend of mine was a complete computer noob when he bought his computer. He needed it to do some text-editing and some spreadsheet stuff (and obviously the salesman had tricked him in buying a 1300-euro top notch pc). Man, could he edit text fast!
Since he didn't know how to even start word (which was installed and had a large shortcut in the middle of his desktop), he called me. As most people here, I've helped a lot of people with the most stupid shit, like 'help, it asks me if I want to save my changes, what should I click'. Since other people I've learned a bit now have pc's full of spyware, prolly even viruses etc, I thought I'd help this one a bit better. I removed windows (after making sure he didn't want to play games), and installed slackware (same system I'm using so I could easily help him if he got in trouble). I explained the basics and I gave him most apps he needed for his work (admittedly, I installed all his hardware, but I do the same thing for my mom if her Windows needs yet another reinstall). I got a lot of weird looks when I was recompiling his kernel, but since he didn't know anything about computers he thought that was the way it should be.
Right now, he's been working with linux 2 years, can do a full reinstall of his system (although I have to help out sometimes with the kernel, he just installs some bloated thing with almost all drivers in it), he can even install stuff himself (by blindly following installation manuals obviously, but I don't think that's so different from what windows-users do when installing stuff). He's been in contact with windows a bit in the meanwhile, but when I asked his opinion he said something along the lines of 'it looks pretty hard to understand'. He didn't even think it was 'user friendly', and when I told him most people thought windows was more user friendly then linux he thought I was joking.
This guy really made me realize that windows *isn't* as userfriendly as anyone thinks. Instead, most people are familiar with windows and the windows way of working. When I went to high school, ppl taught me windows. When I first used Linux in university, I thought 'fuck this, I want windows, that's easier' too. How foolish I was...
It's obvious that people think windows is better, easier, and what else... they're used to it. If instead of windows schools started teaching Linux to children, in 15 years windows will be the user unfriendly OS.
Some schools in my neighborhood are going to do this, because they believe that teaching linux gives the 'poorer' kids a major disadvantage: they haven't got the money to buy a windows licence, nor the money to buy a pc capable of running windows. They usually have the money to pick up one of the free ubuntu-disks that you can get at school. And now the schools are trying to arrange something with some companies so they send their old pc's to school, where the school can redistribute them to pupils that haven't got a pc.
I'm pretty certain that in a couple of years from now, when all those kids graduate, they won't just get a pc running nothing but windows... they'll install Ubuntu too.
did he try using
-- lol pwned
The focus of the attack is all wrong. This isn't an operating system problem (which is proven highly stable and configurable from a technical perspective).
I think the primary problem with these Linux vs. Windows evaluations is that end users testing out the software all have a take it or leave it attitude. If they try it and don't like it because there isn't enough multimedia/office support, instead of complaining to software and hardware vendors about it...they blame the operating system and drop the ball right there.
If progress is going to be made, those users need to, instead of just abandoning the operating system, actually WRITE to these hardware companies asking for drivers...actually CONTACT these companies and ask them for multimedia software.
They should complain to nvidia about their poor Linux support...complain to HP because they don't have a Linux driver for a particular model printer...ASK large software companies for support for Linux.
And the MS Windows user inquires: "Why SHOULD I have to do that? Whats in it for ME?"
A valid question...if you would like to have free software, user, (and yes, free as in Free BEER), there is in fact something big in it for you! Consider spending $100 for Windows XP, and $350 for office software. Where is the advantage? There are some pretty substantial cost benefits involved, wouldn't you say?
Its unfortunate...so many Windows users who try the operating system...find it too difficult, or lacking software/hardware support...and who just chuck it claiming it is still underdeveloped. Only when they stop blaming the operating system, and start blaming companies for lacking driver and software support, will there be any progress made.
"Until linux moves from the "hardcore, holier-than-thou, uber-techie" paradigm, it will always be behind Windows."
:-)
what does that even mean in this context? You are failing the OSS scene for MSFT using a closed proprietary format? I'm sure if MSFT openly documented the file format you'd see proper support in OpenOffice within six months.
Comments like this really piss me off. And for starters, stop using Office, transition to OpenOffice or other formats based on open documentation. Seriously, you're all like the patient who complains when they hit themselves in the head it hurts. Stop hitting yourself in the damn head.
Besides, real pros use TeX for documentation and gnuplot for graphing
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
The masses take the Blue Pill everyday because that is what they are suposed to do.
Those that take the Red Pill do so because someone encouraged them to do so.
It's the FUD promoted in TFA that encourages people to continue taking the Blue Pill.
This article is just one writter who was instruced to write a Linux article.
FTFA: And getting some of the systems to work required more time and effort than I was willing to exert.
The saying goes you get what you give. He was not willing to give so he got nothing.
You can't just wake up one day and say, "I am going to take the Red Pill." Doing so will only result in dissapointment. Each person must come to the conclusion on their own through encouragement and support.
The writter would have been better off a if he had sought out someone who has taken the Red Pill and said to them, "I want to take the Red Pill."
"Why do you want to take the Red Pill?"
"I want to see the light."
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
Okay, MultiMedia concerns I'll give him. But this guy's big gripe is: "I have complex documents in a proprietary format and Linux can't read them." In short, "M$ has me by the balls but I'd use Linux if it was just like Windows....and had me by the balls too!?"
Windows != Linux and Linux != Windows
So many switchers want a drop-in replacement. This is not the case. If the expectation is a "free Windows" then they will be sorely disappointed and not give Linux a fair shake.
As a result, a successful Linux switcher needs one of the following:
1. Reason to switch to Linux (the "killer app")
2. Reason why Windows is not viable (security risk, drm, whatever..)
There are lots of areas where using Linux makes sense. However, it *does* require some learning of new methods of accomplishing tasks. Unfortunately, so many new people to Linux attempt to run it like Windows which is generally a bad idea (I find myself doing the reverse which tends to also be a bad idea).
You can drag pics from browser in Windows desktop too. Time for your daughter to get a new father, or at least one less lame'o.
People who *want* to switch from windows to Linux, will do so, and even if faced with some problems initially, usually manage just fine.
It's the people who *don't* actually want to switch who have such issues.
Fair enough, they wouldn't have switched anyway.
But at least they should consider that hundreds of thousands of Linux users across the world aren't exactly fools, and are managing just fine.
You aren't remembered for doing what is expected of you
Well not exactly. The Macintosh is a different beast than the Windows. You do things differenly on a Mac than on Windows and switching from Windows to a Mac would involve relearning how to do things. Macheads would tell you it would be worth the effort, but for many users it would just not be so.
Switching from Windows to Linux is almost the same idea. The big difference is that Mac's already do everything multimedia very well (probably BETTER than Windows) and Linux still has some catching up to do. Also on a Mac the OS install has already been worked out for you (limited hardware choices to worry about, the advangage of a closed hardware platform).
It really is impossible for someone that's unfamiliar with a particular system to judge how "easy" or "difficult" it is in the absolute sense, compared with the system that they are already most comfortable using (and likely prefer). The article is not seeking to judge the platonic usability of Linux- rather he's honest about evaluating it strictly from the perspective of whether it is a usable system for windows-familiar users to switch to. So to answer your rhetorical question, "articles like this" don't evaluate the difficulties of windows because they're evaluating the claim that Linux is something practical for *windows users* to switch to- people who are already able to overcome windows deficiencies (at least to some extent).
Your assumption that the "prison cell" feeling when you use windows is largely due to the unfamiliarity of the system is absolutely right. However, it disqualifies you from an unbiased judgement- you would feel like windows was a prison cell no matter what.
I'm one of those annoying people who is truly and thoroughly proficient in both. I worked as a UNIX system administrator for 4 years, and know UNIX-based systems inside and out. I've got a credit in the sendmail source code. I've built a "Linux from scratch" system. However, I currently work as a small business computer consultant, spending 100% of my professional time in windows, and have an entire practice built around helping people navigate the incredible pain that is keeping windows systems running reliably in undstandardized environments. So believe me when I say that I know the pain, and I'm not a defender of the windows way of doing things.
But challenging as windows is, my opinion as a fairly unbiased observer and user is that Linux really is more difficult. To pick one very recent example, I've got a computer science degree, and it still took me hours to get my canon printer working with Linux. I'm not laying blame here... Linux has a much tougher road to hoe when it comes to usability because of several inherent factors:
1. Market share disadvantage- few manufacturers package drivers for their hardware
2. Fundamental conflicts between the GPL and software patents- multimedia codecs and the like
3. Total and complete lack of UI standardization- there are few if any UI conventions between different projects- even with simple text configuration files, the basic syntax is hugely different from system to system
I can see someone might argue that the third is a fundamental, structural issue like the first two. But I think it is an inherent result of the great strength of open source software, which is the constantly evolving, creative process of innovation. The fact that there are dozens or shells or window managers is a byproduct of hundreds of thousands of volunteer programmers saying "I know a better way to do this", and the best parts of what they come up with eventually spread widely.
This is why it confuses me when Linux folks get "up in arms" about usability complaints from Windows users. Linux is harder to use than windows. So what? Why do you care? You don't use Linux because it's easy. You use Linux because it's better, more creative, and gives you more control. In a lot of ways, control and usability are conflicting goals. Automatic transmissions sure are easy to use, but a lot of people prefer the control and efficiency of a stick shift. Manual trasmissions aren't going away anytime soon, and Linux doesn't have to defeat windows and recruit all of the "normal users" who value 'easy' above everything else to be successful.
If you want a user-friendly UNIX, get a Mac. Enjoy Linux as it is, and be secure in your superiority...
-R
Instead of doing that, he should have invested some time to checking out some others more suited to new users. The distros that come to mind are SimplyMEPIS, PCLinuxOS, and Kanotix.
I'm a daily Slashdot reader, and even I'VE never heard of those.
This, again, is one of Linux's biggest problems: Too much fragmentation. If distro developers could put their egos aside and combine forces to create distros with some semblance of popular recognition, Linux's fortunes may change.
You're not gonna win-over an already confused user by presenting him or her with 50 more obscure and semi-obscure choices. That person is just gonna say "fuck it" and stick with what he or she knows: Windows.
Also, people want to install something with staying power. Half the distros out there are gonna be gone in a couple of years, replaced by a whole new set. How can you have faith installing something you've never heard of?
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
We just had an interesting battle where Norton AV started hating Thunderbird. From googling on the net, seems like we weren't alone.
If I were to switch to Linux, she would have the same functionality, without the hassles of "make sure you don't click the vbs links, etc, etc, etc."
The *only* thing that holding me back is device support - the scanner she has isn't quite supported, and I doubt the USB camera would integrate well.
You can always spot a well formulated piece of fud. It goes something like, I like Linux and want it to be better except it doesn't have feeture x, y or z that's in Windows. Below are some comments and selected quotes.
.. Windows"
:)
.. didn't appear to be compatible with my graphics hardware"
"six-year-old version
FudAlert: He's comparing a six year old version of Windows to the current versions of LInux
"Linux systems may do just fine. But they still are largely more appealing to computer hobbyists who would like to see Microsoft face more competition"
FudAlert: Linux only usefull to the computer nerd who only want to give one in the eye to MS. Would be no use to the average office worker.
"while the installation and simple functions worked well enough"
Specifically, what complex functions are you referring to that are easier under Windows. And which six year old version.
FudAlert: A six year old version of Windows is better at 'complex functions' than the current crop of Linux.
"the systems couldn't handle all the multimedia applications I needed"
FudAlert: A six year old version of Windows is better at 'multimedia applications' than the current crop of Linux.
What multimedia applications are you comparing to under Windows. Will a six year old version of Windows run the latest multimedia applications. On this SuSE box I have Realplayer, Amarok Kaffeine, KsCD and Mplayer. Mplayer I installed seperately the rest came on the default installation CD.
"getting some of the systems to work required more time and effort than I was willing to exert"
FudAlert: Using Linux is difficult. Using Windows is easy. Even a six year old version.
What didn't work in the default installation. On mine, out of the box you get the above multimedia applications as well as Firefox, Open Office and Acroread. All that most average desktop users would need.
"Linux was [by] Linus Torvalds, who wanted to modify the Unix operating system"
The Linux kernel was based on Minux and is not a modified version of Unix. Most of the rest was contributed by Richard Stallman and a large number of other people too numerous to mention.
"Compatibility with hardware can be a big problem for Linux"
Again, is this six year old hardware? All I can say is that on this system the default installation correctly identified and configured the network card. It also correctly picked up the two SCSI CD writers and the printer. It identified the monitor but the screen was offset and too big so I had to manually selected it using a prog called SaX. Configuring is trivially easy under SuSE as it uses YaST a graphical config tool similar to control panel under Windows.
"the problems became more pronounced with multimedia applications, like viewing movie trailers and operating my digital camera and iPod"
Specifically what movie trailers and what web sites. I didn't realize that the ipod could run on six year old Windows.
"I couldn't transfer, via email or a disk, some complicated word-processor and spreadsheet files between my Linux system at home and Microsoft Windows on my work PC."
Could you provide some more details. Is it a problem with opening attachments. The floppy resides in \media\floppy1 on my system. If you click on it in the file manager the contents should appear. What happened when you tried to access the floppy drive?
"Linspire and Fedora
What make and model of graphics and sound card.
"I was able to send files back and forth between Word on my work computer and OpenOffice's word processor, Writer, on my home PC"
What did you do to solve the previously mentioned problems.
"users should be prepared to spend a l
davecb5620@gmail.com
Can Ordinary PC Users Ditch Windows for Linux? Short answer: no. Long answer: Hell no... Linux completely sucks as a desktop. You get what you pay for. Get a job and buy a Mac.
I've been upgraded to "bad"!
Funny that this story comes up now. A friend and I were discussing it this morning.
Personally I prefer *nix for work and Windows for home use.
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Windows fanboy, nor even a *nix fanboy.
The reason I like *nix for work it does work-like things better (shell scripting, command line intensive etc). But I like windows for home use mostly because I do more recreational computer use there, primarily Games, but I'm a big fan of Winamp too and I don't want to mess with things for hours to get them to just plain work.
To me they're different tools for different jobs. Until Linux is as usable as windows for everything that everybody want to use a computer for it won't beat Windows. Windows is better than Linux. There I said it! I didn't like admitting it, but it's true. As a broad generalization it's true. If you get into detail that statement falls apart becuase Windows sucks at a lot of things, but for your average home user Linux makes little sense. I wish it weren't true, I'd love to use Linux at home, but it doesn't do the things I want it to do as well as I require an OS to do them.
Question everything
Linux will never replace Windows as long as people have this propensity for installing screensavers, screen buddies, random dynamic desktop images and whatever other garbage they can find that come loaded with spy/adware.
People seem to want to load their systems up with piles of shite software that really have nothing to offer but CPU/RAM usage.
It's about whether the person wants to use the computer for function or fun. If your parents are gamers, obviously Linux won't work out so well for you.
If you can get a Linux box running for someone who simply wants to surf the net, IM and send emails, then they'll be fine with it. I know because that's what I've done for my parents.
I gave them my old system. I put Ubuntu on it created "quick launch" buttons for them in the panel for each of the apps my mom/dad wanted (or ever) used. Gaim, Firefox, Thunderbird and OOo's Calc and Writer.
When I got the computer to their place, I set up their printer. Done.
They've not had *a single* problem. I can't tell you how many calls I got from my parents about their Windows crashing, running slow and weird spooler problems.
Let's face it; Most Windows users can't do shit themselves and a) a friend who fixes/maintains their system for them when it starts to shit itself or b) take their broken machine into futureshop or some other computer repair business only to get raped.
So to me, it depends on how such a person wishes to use their system that would determine whether Linux could be an alternative. For my parents, it's been a fantastic alternative.
I'm a firm believer that using Linux is easy for the everyday person. It's installing it and getting everything working that's a problem.
An example: My wife knows my ID and password for my Fedora linux box. All she'd ever done is use Firefox on it. Recently she wanted to get some pictures off my computer and I wasn't home. She logged in, couldn't open the CD drive (the button doesn't work - not a linux issue) she then double clicked the computer icon (in gnome) then right clicked the CD/DVD drive icon and chose OPEN. She popped in a blank CD and closed it. Up popped a window representing the CD, and she went in my pictures folder and dragged the stuff she wanted into the CD folder and then chose file->write to disk. When I got home, I asked how she printed my pics from her computer/printer. She said it was easy except for opening the drive, which took a minute to figure out how to do from the desktop.
Now I just installed FC5 (update from FC4) and I haven't had enough time to get the proprietary nvidia drivers working yet. The installer ran but X crashed - yes I updated the kernel (the one it comes with is broken) I'll get to the bottom of it soon enough. And that's the point - setup is nontrivial. After that I'll worry about getting codecs installed and the firmware for my HD2000 card. Then I'll be working with my wireless driver (ZD1211 Shuttle PN18) in the hope that I can get my particular card supported out of the box when they merge the driver to mainline kernel. In short, I can get stuff working but would never expect joe average to do so. I don't enjoy it myself either, but I do like using Linux a lot compared to windows - a feeling my wife is starting to share.
To be fair, most people never have to get windows working either. It comes preinstalled on their machine, along with any proprietary drivers they may need. Linux just doesn't come that way. That's the difference.
Using Linux is easy, setup can be a bitch.
Hey, I installed Windows XP on a new laptop and my NIC, Modem and VGA were not detected correctly either. Don't forget, laptop manufacturers pre-install the drivers for you. People seem to think linux should automagically work with even the latest hardware, out of the box!
Try the same with copy of Windows XP installed from CD and you will see Windows is worse at hardware detection.
If you mean "ordinary" means the hordes of people out there that have bots/spyware/malware running on their systems and they also have "12:00" flashing on their vcr/microwave/stove then no, I don't think they could use Linux (or any other OS) on their systems.
The long: Yes
The short: No
I wonder how his ego is coping with the realisation that he has such an ordinary level of intelligence.
As a consultant who works with Macs, Windows, and Linux; I find that each has it's advantages. It would be misleading to indicate that using a Mac is a panacea for the average user.
When I see a Mac user move to windows I find that they are not used to the idea of real multitasking. There are so many things in OS X that will cause your cursor to spin and lock you out of doing anything with your computer.
Humor from a Genetically Molested Mind
When I was starting to use Linux I wanted it to work out of the box. So I tried Ubuntu and Xandros but they did not support 3D on my video card. I then got Linspire which felt alot better to use and it had all the codecs and file formats compatablity. Its a great OS it leaves windows in the dark and it can even on some points put mac OS X to shame like on codces (I love Linspire but OS X is better) Oh no what was I thinking! I said Linspire is good, on slashdot! "Linspire puts OS X to shame" what was I thinking! I can almost smell the cat5 cable burning from the response
What the author is telling us it that he bought a PC from HP, but he clicked the left ("Windows") button instead of the right ("Linux") button. Then he had trouble switching on his own.
The answer to his problems was very simple: click the right button.
Next week's article: "I clicked the right button when I meant to click the left button. Then I had to pay another $200 for Windows and spend hours getting all my hardware working all by myself."
Well, if she's anything like a certain friend of mine:
;-) - but she still uses it for watching movies, burnuing CDs, "safely" browsing the net or to open the occassional Office attachment with OpenOfficse (since she doesn't has MsOffice).
you have to show her the gimmicks and little games it usually comes with.
A friend of mine wanted to have Linux installed after she had seen/played xsnow, Shisen-Sho, KPatience, lately: ksudokuo, the possibility to have kde loop through a set of her favourite background pictures, that xine/mplayer played every crap without a "couldn't find codec xy" (e.g. xvid videos, ac3 sound), xmms being able to use her winamp skins, seeing how easy it is to write cool looking papers with lyx, etc...
I don't think she still uses it a lot - since her CIV III is for Windows..
Kinda funny: the stuff that Linux does better (for her) is the same stuff the author of the article had problems with.
Probably because her Office stuff isn't as complicated and I installed all that multimedia stuff for her.
Well, and it was obvious to her that she won't be able to run the same software but use something else instead.
[ Probably didn't miss Windows Media Player much because she lost all the music she had ripped with it after a Windows reinstall (cause WMP had ripped it with its default settings to DRMed wma files..) ]
As a desktop Linux user since 1994, and the author of Manning Press's forthcoming "Desktop Linux with Ubuntu", I've spent a lot of time thinking about the viability of Linux on the desktop and who exactly the target audience is for desktop Linux. This has been a topic of some debate with my editor at Manning.
Let's note a couple of things about Mr. Golden's article. First, he's clearly not a technical guy at all, as several misstatements in his article reveal:
I point these remarks out not by way of criticism, but by way of setting context. Mr. Golden is a classic end user, someone who has no in-depth technical understanding of the systems he is using, but someone who, by and large, is self-admining his systems.
Second: note the remarkable advances he mentions in the course of the article. Think, for a moment, to the state of Linux 5 years ago, and then think about these comments:
While Mr. Golden did note a number of hardware compatibility problems, I tend to downplay those in the context of this comparison. As others on /. have noted, anyone buying a white box computer with no OS installed and hoping that Windows XP would "just work" with all of its components would no doubt be equally disappointed. Either do the comparison on the basis of installing Windows XP from scratch, or do the comparison on the basis of a computer with Linux pre-installed. Anything else is comparing pears and oranges.
Mr. Golden's greatest difficulty was with incompatibility between OpenOffice and MS Office when it came to complex documents or spreadsheets. This is not surprising, since these are Mr. Golden's professional tools. And the compatibility that needs to be there simply isn't there. If your spreadsheets involve pivot tables or embedded charts, don't expect good results when moving back and forth between OpenOffice and MS Office. If your word processing
Well, actually, I do mean Wine, but not WineHQ wine. Anyone who wants to run Excel or any other Windows applications on Linux should go straight to http://www.codeweavers.com/ and invest in Crossover Office, which costs very little!
It gives you point-and-click installation (as in insert CD, double-click on "Setup.exe") of Windows applications without having to think about anything. Whatever Windows appls you install end up in a a folder called "Windows Applications" in your K-Menu/GNOME-Menu/etc.
I am a professional writer, editor, and photographer that uses Linux. I have the following Windows applications installed in Fedora Core 5, I use them often, and I know nothing about how to configure Wine:
- Microsoft Office XP Professional (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access)
- Adobe Photoshop 7.0 + Adobe Camera RAW
- ISL Silkypix 2.0
- PTLens
- NeatImage
- Apple iTunes
I also have installed, but use less often:
- Internet Explorer 6.0
- Adobe FrameMaker 7.0
These all installed with a simple double-click on Setup.exe after inserting the CD. It's that simple. Combined with Fedora Core, whose recent versions are simple installs that autodetect everything, and Linux is a very easy system to migrate to.
Every member of my parents' household have been converted to Linux+MS Office for their everyday needs (this is both of my parents and all of my siblings), as has a friend who's in management at Intel, a friend who's in nonprofit management, and two friends who are graduate students.
Why did they switch? They're tired of having to reinstall Windows periodically thanks to spyware/hardware upgrades/whatever, tired of having to pay for every little bit of functionality they want (Wanna rip an MP3? shell out $$$. Wanna extrat this kind of archive? Shell out $$$. Wanna copy all your files from your old hard drive to your new hard drive? Shell out $$$.)
The point being: it's easy to run Excel on Linux. If you can afford Excel, Crossover is so cheap as to almost be free, and it's the easiest piece of software you'll ever use. It's been this way for the better part of five years now with Linux+Crossover. To say otherwise is to be disingenuous.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
It's like we've been saying all these years: One-stop, hassle free PC with Linux preinstalled and all drivers in place + a top-notch, well-configured bluecurve KDE/Gnome Desktop + a neat branding is going to make the impact. Until then component-custom x86 will always be the mess it has become in the last 20 years. With only preinstalled MS WinWhatever to haphazardly disguise that mess.
Until someone does this all-in-one Linux PC thing, Apple is going to nibble away marketshare with their Mac-Mini concept.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
One of the requirements that all these comparisons have is "It must be compatible with my Windows computer that I use at work". As long as the requirements spell out "Windows" rather than just functionality like word processing and whatever, then Windows will always have the advantage. If the requirement read "Must be compatible with my Linux system at work", then the comparison would be very different.
The critical mass is still with Windows. People try to hide that by rewording the requirements to something that does not mention Windows by name, but it always comes back to compatibility with Windows functionality and Microsoft formats.
This is why things like Open Document Formats are important. If the requirements shift from a microsoft format to a non-microdoft format, then you've knocked down one more element of their critical mass. You could count media as windows friendly formats in this context. But it is only one of many windows friendly formats.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.
You need to compare two similar things. What, as always, is compared is a pre-installed system that you have experience with, with a non-pre-installed system that you are unfamiliar with.
...
:-)
Give Joe Sixpack an empty PC and Windows XP pro OEM and tell him you want to watch a DVD on it, listen to MP3's and write about it in Openoffice, so you can read it on your Linux machine.
Last time I installed Windows, I luckily had a friend available who could explain how things worked. The time before that was Windows 95.
So compare two pre-installed machines and/or two bare machines that you want to get funtional. I bet SUSE 10.1 in combination with an extra repository Packman where you then select MPlayer to install is much easier then installing your OEM, your Office, your dvdsoftware, your
And for sure it is cheaper, wich should be enough for Joe Sixpack. The money he saves he can use to buy music. (So ??AA, The reason you loose money is Microsoft.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
And I say "experience" with a grain of salt... Since it sounds like he didn't put much time nor effort into the trial, so he didn't gain much experience. IMHO, if he wanted another windows, he should've just installed and tried Vista... Oh wait, that's not available yet.
People like this guy just don't get it. Linux is similar to Windows. Not the same. Better at some things, worse at others. To trash either OS for not being the other makes about as much sense as trashing one make/model of car for not being identical to the other. I think he does his readers a disservice by drawing sweeping conclusions from a very, very limited sample.
My own personal experience recently has been just about the exact opposite. I recently set up a new laptop for my wife, running WinXP Media Center. I also cobbled together a system out of (4) old desktops to make one usable system and installed Suse 10.0 on it. I've always been a Red-Hat guy, but wanted to play with Suse.
Fast forward several weeks. The Suse box was running, doing everything I wanted, the first evening. It is an NFS server to my Red-Hat box, accepted the later addition of an old IDE drive (a fourth IDE device) and mounted it without a hiccup. Allowed me to swap a USB optical mouse for an old MS Serial mouse, etc.
Contrast that to my wife's experience... She is still frustrated and angry at me, MS, her old desktop (a WinXP Home box), her new laptop, and just about every software publisher responsible for anything on her system. She still cannot get her bookmarks to transfer over. Some (many) of the sample music and video clips apparently simply cannot be deleted. Outlook and IE keep popping up, trying to become the default applications. (she uses Firefox/Thunderbird) And it still keeps trying to connect to our neighbor's wireless network, even though we have our own secure 802.11g set up...
Now, were I so inclined as to make sweeping generalizations from limited experience... I would say the WinXP/MC has been an utter failure -- wife (in tears) even offered to give me the laptop and go back to her old desktop. Suse? Zero connectivity, crashing, or configuration issues. Booted up and just simply works. Even with me playing with it, poking at it, seeing how it is different from RH. Teaching myself how to set up NFS, etc.
Granted, for what I wanted/need the WinXP laptop is being asked to do more. But that's the point. What I want/need is different. What this guy wrote was about just his experience. Linux isn't ready for everyone? Ha, neither is Windows. It certainly isn't ready nor painless for anyone I know -- and I know, I get the phone calls. I'm apparently tech support for my entire extended family.
Linux is not "there" yet, not if you define "there" as being a drop-in replacement for Windows. {diety} help me, I hope it never is. Could it be easier for the "average" user to take up? Sure. So could Windows. We of the "Linux Community" shouldn't rest on our backsides, we need to keep Linux moving forward. But I think it is about time we stop appologising for Linux not being Windows.
Background: CS major. I've tried two distros of Linux.
Now, the last time I tried an install I just plain gave up. Why? fstab. You know what? I just don't care which label is which for a hard drive. I think expecting users to manually edit something critical like the fstab file is what make the Linux experience such a painful memory. It's not that users are dumb. But why can't computers do the work for us? Isn't that what they are for?
Moving away from the stagnant steaming pile that was XFree86 to X.org was a step in the right direction. Linux as a core OS has been "ready" for quite some time, but the creature comforts have been starved for resources to get it that way in such a short timeframe.
It's not easy to install most software and when you do manage to install the software most still don't show up in the programs list. The average user relies icons not the command line that's where windows has you beat. I'm a computer professional and I like Linux and it's abilities, but there is no way my mom or dad could use it as far as installing new programs goes.
The whole point of debian-based distros such as Ubuntu are the package-management features. Yes, the link you've showed would allow firefox to run faster (due to whatever differences between the globally compiled version that would be distro-included vs the source one)... but it's by no means necessary to get firefox. If you want the speed of a self-compiled verson then windows wouldn't likely help you either...
Ubuntu: Run synaptic. Reload lists. Search for firefox. Check off. Click apply. Done.
Windows: Find package website (in this case mozilla.com). Surf links. Download firefox from link. Figure out where you just saved the installed (I've seen many users choke at this, strangely). Run installer. Click next a bunch of times. Done
So really, with Ubuntu you're either just as easy, or even a bit easier. If you're using KDE (or I assume gnome) then the program will be on your menus after install. Of course, Ubuntu also comes with a fairly recent version of firefox anyways... so depending on how old your install discs were it might do you just fine anyhow.
And yet, here's the first link off google. And the second comment:
Any particular reason you want to use version 1.05? If not, then you can get the latest using synaptic.
My second link took me here, which doesn't mention firefox (probably because it's already installed) but does mention install instructions for a schwackload of other common software. It does use apt-get instead of the synaptic GUI, but the steps are simple enough.
Demonstrating one of the hardest ways to install software on linux as an example that it is "too hard" doesn't make you informative, it makes you a troll.
Really. The argument is: Linux doesn't get there because it's not out of the box. Besides OSX which really comes close, which OS is out of the box? Windows is far from being out of the box. People just got so used to Windows being crap that has to be tuned and configured with click orgies and reboots that they don't really notice anymore. Even systems with preinstalled windows are usually unusable at first. Granted, most hardware components work right away but usability is a completely different matter.
But as soon as someone compares Linux with windows and points out the problems with windows, the next person chimes in and makes clear, that the shortcomings of windows don't make linux any better. Of course I agree with that.
This discussion is going in circles. For me the main reason people have problems with linux are hardware vendors since most if not all the major problems originate here. Installation of *finished* Software is just something to get used to. Don't compare Installation of Software XYZ Version 0.15 with setup.exe of MS office. You can't compare the two. You have to weigh in the completely different way of software distribution in the open source world.
At the end of the day all depends. It depends on the level of preconfiguration of both operating systems, it depends on the hardware you run the systems on, it depends on the amount of willingness to learn new, different but not necessarily more difficult things. In the end one will find more than enough pluses and minuses for both platforms. The only real killers being left over are unsupported hardware and softwarepackages which are not available.
If yes, then the answer is "no", but not because of linux or windows. In my experience "ordinary users" can not doe anything related to the PC. Computing is something which happens to them. They are not active part of anything which makes decisions. Their brains are so passive that they would sell the personal data of their whole family if anybody offers them a "free" e-mail program which has a nice red button instead of a green one. They click on everything which does not move away quickly enough and they have no personal definition of "spyware". They are fine with EULAS which allow the company to take an data wanted.
So it might be that the person maintainig their computer (which they'll have to have should the device not be the biggest spyware collection in the known universe) makes linux happen to them.
(E.g. once they realize that having the functionality of writing a nice document available for sure is a feature, they usually start to like it. Even my former girlfriend who studied languages and was completly incapable on the computer started to like LaTeX after she saw that she dd not hav any serious problem writing her thesis.).
As for his multimedia woes, that is the result of not chosing the right Linux distribution for the job. Free Linux distros will never be abled to play encrypted DVDs. That is a decision of the movie industry that choses to use proprietary encryption formats, that is not the fault Linux. The author even admits there is a $40 version of Linux that chould do the job that he wants, but instead of using that distro he wastes his time on six other distros that clearly will not provide the functions he wants in their standard configuration.
Rather than blaming Linux for not being able to use proprietary file formats for free, he should be questioning the computer industry's over-reliance on proprietary formats. And when trying out Linux he should choose the distro that fits his needs, not complain about the half-dozen other distros don't do what he wants them to do.
Years ago I had an Atari ST where everything was done by GUI. There was a tool called the macro mouse recorder which let you automate some things to a degree. Then I purchased a compiler which came with a program that let me run batch files and a command line - and many things became a lot easier. Opening the console is not a bad thing - it's the way things are done and it gives you a lot more options. Tools like find and grep are hard to use flexibly from a GUI, pipes, concatinating files there's many things that you really need to spell out instead of pointing. My one year old neice can get everything she wants now by pointing at it - but it's a limited form of conveying information for more than simple tasks. You use a command line of a sort every time you use google or many other applications becuase the point and click at pictures metaphor breaks down. The command shells are also applications - they also let you launch other applications - think of them as scripting programs like visual basic interpeters or office application macros.
There's a reason for that different approach - no version numbers in the libraries wih MS Windows. In other operating systems the libraries can go into shared areas even if some other thing will crash and burn if they try to use them, but with win32 you have to keep them seperated unless they are strictly compatible with everything that wants to use them. Both approaches work to an extent and enable you to run old binaries from many years gone. On *nix you have a multiuser networked approach with the assumption that you may want to have multiple disks, so you have local and shared directories under the assumption that another machine may want to get to your shared libraries. There's also a division between system libraries that you really want to have there if all but one disk is offline and other ones that you don't care about unless the system is fully functional - hence /lib and /usr/lib. On a single user system you may not need any of this - but linux is descended from large multiuser systems which is where it's major strengths come from as well as increased complexity.
Things are done differently on different systems - I for one dislike the option of having some random temp secretary being able to grant everyone access to confidential files so I like the group idea. Other people really like access control lists on each file as you have described but that can get complicated as well. It's not that hard to organise things either way with a bit of thought - but it's also easy in both cases to drive holes through security without a bit of thought. Granting someone access to everything in a group which only has one file they should see can be just as bad as letting everyone see a paticular file once you get beyond trivial operations.
It's different - you just have to accept that whether you use it or not. There's no point trying to be a better MS Windows than MS Windows - the people in gnome that wanted to do that have long since moved on when they finally realised that you would have to copy the limitations (eg. C: drive naming, difficult to manipulate registry) as well as the features otherwise people would get confused and go looking for things that make no sense on the platform under it. Just like the silly "C:" drive in MS Windows linux has inherited an environment from other things that may make little sense in terms of a single partition desktop computer only used for word processing, games and net access. It makes sense in context - just like the "C:" drive does if you have to boot into MSDOS to do firmware updates or virus removal.
When it gets down to it MS Windows and linux don't have much in c
While I understand your point, your example is a pretty crappy one... since drag&drop from browsers (and most other apps) works just fine in Windows also. (Even in IE.) Given, most Windows users I know wouldn't ever figure that out because they run their browser "maximized."
To be a real Mac snob, you have to point out how Apple's had well-supported drag&drop since version 7.0 and Windows applications didn't really support it until around 2000ish.
Oh, and just to add insult to injury in my flamebaity post, right-clicking an image in Safari gives you a "Save Image to the Desktop" item which works exactly how you'd expect... so her not finding it might point to a reading deficiency, might wanna check that out.
Comment of the year
This whole thread seems to be based on the assumption that everything just works under Windows and every Granny can go into a store, pick up a new computer and be up and running without a care in the world. Anyone who has ever worked on a help desk will know how painfully hard so many people make it. Having set the bar at that height they demand that Linux clears it.
Using a computer is a skill that needs to be learned, developed and practiced. Most people do not do that and struggle on the half dozen tasks that they do repetitively. They then turn white at the thought of throwing away half of their scanty knowledge and having to learn something new.
The plain truth is that neither linux, Windows nor OS X are very easy for a beginner to use without help or study. Given that help Linux is no harder than Windows. Microsoft is way in front of the game as its product usually comes preinstalled. Until that changes (unlikely) people will bitterly resist switching.
Those codecs don't just magically show up in Windows or OSX - the people who create the software pay for the rights to use them. So one of these many Linux distro companies just needs to put together a distribution where these codecs have been paid for and are included as modules and charge a bit for the distro.
Blaming the laws is convenient, but not the problem.
paintball
I have tried 5 different distrobutions and not a single one works right out of the box. They all crash on startup on my desktop and laptopo. I have to go change things around to get it to work. A normal user will not know how to do that.
The distros that he looked at all have companies backing them and are the most popular because of this fact.
And shouldn't those distros be the BEST ONES because they have companies BACKING THEM UP? I had NEVER heard of PCLinuxOS, or Kanotix. I heard of SimplyMEPIS in some linux discussions.
But seriously, when you have more than 300 different distros to choose from, how could POSSIBLY you choose and make a wise decision? Do you really think a Joe User can have the intelligence, wisdom and patience to do such a titanic task?
Linux (and F/OSS in general) has been continually struggling with promotion, but this is not the same struggle as before. We are putting our energies toward solving a set of problems that have already been solved, but it's important to realize that Linux/FOSS is now facing a different and new problem.
When Linux faced technical problems, we needed hard core programmers willing to delve into the nitty gritty of making the processor run. The geeks of the world got together and hacked out a solid, stable kernel and the collection of GNU utilities.
When the problem was the UI, we needed people to know how to make things pretty and convenient. We built GNOME and KDE and Xfce on top of X.
When the problem was mindshare, we needed credible spokespeople to spread the news of Linux. The Economist and Time magazine and IBM (and SCO!) stepped in for us, and now the world has heard of Linux.
Now we're after market share and acceptance, and what we need is people who know what ordinary users want and need in order to take up Linux. Who would know what ordinary users want and need? Hint: I've already mentioned them twice in this paragraph.
Folks, Linux is now at the point where it's "ready to take over the desktop" --*if* we move in the right direction. The thing is, we're *not* moving in the right direction. We have been ready to make a left turn at the crossroads and start heading toward the desktop, but we just aren't making the turn. Of course, yes, we have sort of meandered towards it with cool new interfaces and a plethora of apps, but that's like making three right turns to turn left. We need to recognize that what it is that people want in order to make Linux "The Desktop".
"The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell, is a book about how and why little things can make the difference between some memes spreading like wildfire and others simply not taking hold. Although recently promoted by Barnes & Noble bookstores under their Sales/Marketing Books department, only a small section talks about how to get a product to catch on. The ideas are fascinating, and can be applied toward smoking cessation and other health promotion, or anything else where you want to leverage a small effort to make a big difference. Recommended read.
In the book, Gladwell talks about three different types of people needed to spread a meme epidemic: Connectors, Salespeople, and Mavens. Mavens are members of the potential market who are knowledgeable, and to whom other market members go to for advice. We do want to pay attention to what they say because others pay attention to what they say, even if they are not necessarily that knowledgeable (compared to us F/OSS geeks). In the same way that my gynaecologist friend has to watch Oprah because all her (female) patients watch that inane talk show and come to my friend with questions, so we need to pay attention to people like Mark Golden of WSJ and see what they're saying, rather than dismiss them with "Ahh, he won't even invest the time" or "It's not our fault, because the DVD is DRM-encumbered".
I'm not saying that those Linux problems will be easy to solve, but those are the problems that we have, and they loom closer than a lot of people here on Slashdot realize.
Just a note for those of you who would say, "Well, I don't care if Linux doesn't gain market share, because I just want it to tinker with, and I actually prefer if the unwashed masses would stay with their spyware-ridden proletariat systems!" Remember: market share is clout, and clout is what will make the hardware manufacturers release their specs so that we can have open source device drivers. Clout is what will get EU politicians to back off on software patents, and it is what will get universities to stop thinking that Microsoft is everything. Market share is what will improve Linux, so that you can go on with your happy tinkering.
Whew. Sorry a
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
I have been fighting it for a couple of weeks. I wanted to use it for VMware.
.....?
It seems VMware does not like the startup directories of Slack. After a couple of weeks of messing with it ( gettting the obvious to work, FTP, telnet, etc ) I have creamed grub and it now does not boot. (the documentation for GRUB reads like something from the Delphic Oracle) .
Do I boot with Knoppix and try and repair or
Right now it's time for coffee.
A Slackware fan.
NB; Still have not quite figured out how to replace VIM with vi.
KDE/Gnome + Linux is pretty much "ready for the desktop". Many home users need a browser and a email client and that's about it.
I've said it many times before, and I'm sure I'll say it many more times, but the worst thing to happen to desktop Linux was to have two major desktop environments. If Qt had been, say LGPL, and Gnome would have never come about, things would be a lot different today. You could have a real product that ISVs could target.
But as we have it today, you have a billion distros with KDE and Gnome sharing the desktop linux market, and freedesktop.org and the Portland project trying to address some of the interop issues, but it's a little late. Time doesn't stand still just because it's open source. Vista is just going to further the distance between desktop Linux and windows. The crucial time was between when XP was released and now.
Think of something like BeOS, but with the linux kernel. I wouldn't be surprised if 5-7 years from now, KDE and Gnome are largely forgotten, and someone has put a really cohesive desktop operating system on top of the linux kernel.
When you select a disk icon and start to drag it, the trash icon changes to the eject disk icon. You can't put a disk icon in the trash - it's just not possible. You must be thinking of OS9, not OSX.
Everything I've ever installed on Mac OSX has involved an installer except for a tiny few homebrew applications.
Large products (like Microsoft Office, for example) are installed by drag and drop. Try doing that with Office on a Windows system. Drag and drop is the recommended way to install products. I think many developers have been brainwashed by Windows to think that an installer is needed, or perhaps they think that users prefer an installer. In some circumstances an installer is required, but they are not required for most user level applications.
Is there a way in OSX to make it so that every, say, GIF image opens in a particular program?
Yup, just get the file info (command-i) or use the contextual menu or use the standard menu bar item. In the file info there's a simple option ("Open with:") that allows you to select the application for this type of file. It's even easier than Windows.
I can't help wondering if you have actually used OSX very much - or at all.
I feel that Windows is also difficult and complicated to use. I really don't feel like investing the time to figure out how to get Windows to work. Especially if there is some problem, be it a faulty driver, a misbehaving install wizard, or some system service that I wasn't aware that I am running or that I was supposed to be running.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
When people buy a PC, they buy it with Windows ALREADY installed, with the drivers ALREADY installed.
In other words, the users have done ZERO WORK to make Windows usable. (for this it doesn't matter if Windows is the worst, most unstable and prone to viruses OS. The installation "just works" and that's what we're discussing here). What we want to do is insert a CD that says "Installing Linux", ask very simple questions as what country i live in and what keyboard layout we have, and be done with it.
When I installed WinXP on my machine, Windows already had drivers for all its hardware. It didn't require me to install an additional driver. Of course, when I upgraded the motherboard, it was a very different thing (I really can't speak about this, since this was about the same time SP2 came up, and there were other complications).
But for most of the machines i've installed WinXP on, installation went flawlessly. It "just worked". Yes, I had to install the video driver, but it went flawlessly, too.
Now compare with my installation of Ubuntu Hoary, where the internet didn't work (thank God I installed it in a dual boot, otherwise i'd be locked out), the audio drivers didn't work, so I had to boot windows to google for help installing ubuntu with PPPoE modems (which are the grand majority in my country). I'd reboot back to Linux and try, and if it didn't work, I'd have to reboot to Windows again, browse the web... do you have any idea of how exhausting that is for a technical user? A Joe user would be COMPLETELY CLUELESS about it.
And if the OS can't just install right, we're talking about a SHOWSTOPPER. So no, Linux is *NOT* ready yet. However, when Ubuntu Dapper comes out, i'll try again and compare.
'Would' they, not 'can' they. The simple answer is 'no'.
I was pretty much an ardent Windows user a year ago. Now, I can clearly see that linux is much easier to install and use than Windows. Granted, I am a power user/programmer type, and most people aren't, but regardless, the problem is, most people don't install either OS and don't realize how difficult Windows truly is.
People just don't experience Linux and Windows on the same level. Nobody realizes how difficult and time consuming it is to install and configure Windows. Installing it is a pain and it's even harder to make a dual boot system. You have to hunt down drivers for all your periphrials and most of the time, linux comes with this stuff working out of the box. You have to find and hunt down programs you want to use. Again, linux usually has the stuff you want by default.
All we need for linux to be adopted by the masses, is for Dell and other major computer sellers to make dual boot computers. That is ALL.
If this could happen, it would be a matter of time, probably within a couple years, for Windows to lose its stranglehold on computing. They should assemble the computer with hardware that is supported nicely and linux, and it should come with a nice friendly linux already installed and set up to support all their hardware. Then perhaps a custom distribution could come with the computer so it could be reinstalled easily.
People then have a choice at start up (but it would initially default to booting Windows). All it takes is a LITTLE exploration, and they'd be experiencing the beauty of linux.
Maybe we should start writing letters to Dell and the like. I've been thinking about doing it myself, but if there was a "movement", they might listen.
"I'm not religious, but at the same time I don't get why science always has to have something to prove."
Wanting to actually get things done without having to be a software engineer isn't "whining", it's reasonable.
Even for those of us who are software engineers, I have better things to do with my time than fiddle with configurations for things that work out of the box on another system. I've pointed this out before: I work in a professional environment, if I need something to work then I need it to work yesterday.
It strikes me that many people seem to want to have their cake and eat it too when it comes to Linux distros. They want it to compete with Windows and MacOS X as a desktop platform, but they also want to treat it as a hobby job that "is free, so don't complain or implement it yourself." These two are mutually exclusive--"free" is not enough, by itself, to entice me to use something.
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
These people are people like my mom. My mom is fairly computer illiterate. She uses Debian Stable, kmail, firefox, and tetris. Occasionally she'll use one of the word processors available, but usually not. But she didn't have to install it and she doesn't have to maintain it.
When she has a problem I can remotely log in and fix it. Her main problem so far: clock skew. This is after 2 years or so, on a $199 machine from Fry's.
Unlike when she had windows. Her computer got viruses and spyware. If she had a problem I really had no good way of helping her out. She's happier now with Linux.
She couldn't install Linux. But then again, she couldn't install windows, either. She couldn't administrate Linux or set up a printer. She couldn't do that under Windows either, probably.
I think we're getting to the point with Linux that the average person can use it and feel comfortable. However, administration and installation for both Windows and Linux is still difficult.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
Besides laws, we also have to make video conferencing available on linux, so that it's compatible with MSN and Yahoo on the Microsoft side. Until we can tell a teenage MySpacer that they can still see and hear their friends when they boot into Linux and use GAIM, it's unlikely that kids will want to switch.
It's also thing that's holding me back - videoconferencing support.
Oh You POS
You are forgetting one factor: Unless a keyboard fell in your hands while you where young, computers where never that easy.
Most people need a tutor to help them through making spreadsheets, installing windows, and removing viruses, daily tasks... It requires some training, and generally, there is one person to kickstart them in the right direction.
Same with linux, a new linux user will need help from a tutor or friend to help them in the right direction
As a linux user, I have a hard time with windows and mac. I'm always pressing Alt+f2 or searching for the mini commander applet. I'm been for so long with linux that I earned habits and I'm used to things being at a certain place.
And it bugs me that I can't fix problems from the command line.
Duh! But by the same token:
Claims by some Microsoft Publishers (is there more than one?) that anybody can easily upgrade from one Microsoft product to another seem totally oversold.From the article, he used a system with known problems (Sony is a bitch to work with for Linux distros), and not exactly the distros that I would choose, and didn't use any of the helper apps (like easy_ubuntu, etc.), and that he was using moderately complex spreadsheets (which most people don't use), I'd say his assessment was, well frankly, his assessment.
The thing that really bothers me about people's claims is that they are quite likely personal experiences which at face value are pretty much worth the paper they are written on. Why is it that you never see someone write an article that is a compilation of diverse, informative, non-biased experiences? My guess is that they aren't interested in any truth but their own. I will admit that I'm guilty of that myself, but I'd certainly be willing to give objectivity a shot.
Hey, anybody out there willing to pay me to be objective?
A week ago I tried installing 6 different distrobutions of Linux. each one crashed after install .Completly locked up my system. Would freeze on bootup. When I resolved that problem then it would not even display correctly.
It would switch the bottom and top halves of the screen.
I gave up and reinstalled windows. IF I am having these kinds of problems just getting the distros top work then what kind of problems would a less experienced user run into.
No matter what youy say windows and mac osx are a lot more user friendly. You dont have to compile programs to install them. You dont have to do much inthe way of install.
Even if windows doesnt have the right driver say for ur gf card you can still use it . Linux just crashed on my and did some wierd things ebcause it didnt have the drivers.
I know for a fact that there are ordinary PC users who have no problems with using Linux. From my experience I can characterize those users as "users who don't even think about installing software themselves".
:-). I know, that most things are possible if you put in enough effort, but what ordinary user really wants to?
But if Linux and the necessary apps are provided by a system administrator or a friend, these users hardly have any problems when using it.
The users I know were either company workers in small companies who used special software for their needs as well as some standard software (like browser, mail, Acrobat Reader and office software, which in this case was Applixware).
Or they were older people who just wanted to surf the net, send some e-mail to their grandchildren and type the odd letter.
And as I said, all those users hardly had any problems. Because Linux is a multiuser environment and for years had stricter user rights, the users (who of course didn't have root passwords) couldn't even mess with their system (except for the desktop settings).
On the other side those users who do install software themselves and who expect to buy a new gadget and pop in the driver CD and click setup.exe do have problems when using Linux. If your software needs vary and change you can have a hard time using Linux. I know this from first hand experience, too
But for every user of the second type, there are maybe 20 of the first type. So I believe there is a huge base for Linux to grow.
Changing over from any system to any other system, even a better one, is a big pain. The odds are always stacked in favor of the known problems rather than the new problems. In making the judgement of how much "system admin time" he is willing to put in, he needs to account for all the time he spends purging viruses, worms, and malware from his windows system.
"What's more, I couldn't transfer, via email or a disk, some complicated word-processor and spreadsheet files between my Linux system at home and Microsoft Windows on my work PC."
What does he mean by that? Does he mean that his excel spreedsheet wouldn't work with OpenOffice? Or that files would not physically transfer?
Also, small point maybe, but OpenOffice is not "Linux."
...but not with an out-of-the-box install. The sad state is that to have a normal, competitive desktop you need the distro (e.g. Ubuntu) and the extras (e.g. EasyUbuntu). You have to know they exist and where to find them, because the official docs aren't going to point you to them.
These contain all the things that are in violations of patents (MP3, DVDs), DMCA (DeCSS), distribution licenses (Flash, Java, win32 codecs, kernel modules) = copyright violations and so on that aren't in the official distro, but that you need to uncripple it. I think that is the way it'll go, with one official version for corporations and an "underground" desktop version.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I would tend to disagree with that. If you put in a blank CD, Windows xP will ask you what to do with it, ie make a music cd, etc. Also, if you put in a DVD without a DVD codec installed, it will tell you that you need to install a DVD codec, and if I remember correctly take you to a web page that lists available DVD programs for windows (it has been a while).
I'm trying to set up an HDTV installation.
/dev/dtv which should be linked to /dev/dtv0-4. And when none of those work, it doesn't tell you what to do except go to the blogs. And they didn't work.
/dev/video0 which coincided with a FAQ I found on the web.
/dev/video32. "Video32" is sort of a "WTF?", isn't it, since why in the world video32 as opposed to video0-31 or video33-whatever? On KnoppMyth, nothing. Reinstalled Fedora 1. Son-of-a-gun, dtvscan sprung to life and all my local channels are there on /dev/video32.
First I tried a basic Fedora 1 install because that is where the conjunction of the driver for the HDTV card and the manufacturer's drivers for my motherboard accessories coincide.
The pcHDTV 3000 linux card came with three 8-1/2x11 pages of 12 point "documentation". It says to try the signal scan programs on
Wiped it and said to heck with the accessories. Put in net, sound and video cards and tried KnoppMyth. Chose pcHDTV card in the setup since I have a pcHDTV 3000. Unlike other settings where it reported no device, it seemed happy with
Signal scan? Nothing.
"Someplace" on the web I found a faq detailing one person's install that said to try
Now, Fedora 1 with a 2.4 kernel and Xine isn't so cool and I was having some problems, so back to KnoppMyth. (But at least I knew the card worked and my local reception was strong, right?) Now I've found a FAQ that says if you have a pcHDTV3000 card, "OBVIOUSLY" you don't choose pcHDTV as your capture device with KnoppMyth, you choose DVB device, remove the cx8000 driver and reinstall the dvb driver. How stupid of me not to realize that choosing pcHDTV for a pcHDTV card was the wrong thing to do.
Now, I'm going to persevere with MythTV since I see potential there and that's the sort of "hobbyist" (_not_ consumer) I am, but _surely_ even the most rabid linux zealot can get an inkling of why at least _some_ people would say, "Screw it" and buy a Windows Media PC. A person's time _is_ worth something too.
Seeing that there are over 6 months old bugs filed on this that haven't even been assigned yet, I quite frankly didn't think it worth the effort.
http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=974
Regards,
--
*Art
The problem with Linux being so non-intuitive is also a blessing in disguise. Back in the day, you had to be a programmer to even use a computer. There were no real operating systems to speak of, just a built-in programming language. One would sit down, write the programs they would need to use, and then use them. It was time-consuming and cumbersome, so only really "smart" people had computers and the numbers were few. The whole idea of the Apple was something that every person could use, wrestling control of the computer away from the geeks and nerds, and giving it to normal, everyday people to help out with their daily lives. There are two schools of thought as to what a computer is. The first school of thought is the Apple camp, that a computer is an appliance, it should "just work" out of the box. The other side holds the PC users, who hold that the Personal Computer is a tinkerer's tool, and every owner should be able to know how to fix it/configure it to do what they want it to do.
Then Windows came along and Microsoft said "Look everybody! Now a PC can do all the same things a Mac can do! Plus it's cheaper!" Enough people believed it, but for a while most PC users had to have some knowledge of DOS commands and configuration files (Remember autoexec.bat and config.sys?). With the advent of XP, this has gone away. The only problem is, the hardware architecture that was designed to process spreadsheets and databases now has images and video thrown at it. The Windows operating system has become more and more bloated and unstable over the years and people are getting sick of it.
With the rise of computer owners in the world, the average intelligence in this group is plummetting. A lot of the reason PCs are plagued by viruses, adware, spyware and phishing is because the users are so stupid they just hit "yes" to every prompt they see. With Linux, the user has to be fairly intelligent in order to get the computer to do what he wants. It fills the "tinkerer" niche of people that dominated the PC userbase 25 years ago. I sense a lot of worry that if people stop working on their PCs and use an OS that doesn't work as well, but caters to their lazy behavior, then computer programming will be reduced to a select few who control everything we do, giving everyone no choice. It's already happened, something called Microsoft. Just look at how often they change their API's and constantly blame 3rd-party programs for any instabilities. Open Source is a way for users to stay in control, do things that big brother corporations don't want them to do.
So that's the real reasoning behind the "difficulty" of Linux. If it didn't exist, there quite probably wouldn't be anyone smart enough to stand up and compete with Microsoft, even on a small level.
Every time I have to use linux I have problems. Its a random mess of crap from random people. Every driver works differently. Everything is configured differently. Everything is *WAY* more complex than it needs to be. Linux is not ready for anything, its a horrible pain to use. And this is not coming from a windows user, this is coming from an openbsd user. I use openbsd on my laptop because linux is so convoluted and broken.
"1. Insert CD, click the install in the autorun .exe, click on open in the download window"
2. Download
This sounds very easy when you write those two steps, but from what I've seen of Windows users they don't know how to be selective about what they install from those CDs that typically accompany new hardware. They end up not only installing the driver for the hardware, but also a ton of 3rd party software, much of which is unnecessary to run the hardware efficiently. In fact many of these little "extra" programs are either trials that will require purchase eventually, or programs that add complications or conflicts to the software already installed on their PCs. Sometimes settings get changed by the installations of these "extras", and almost every one of them will set themselves up by default to startup with Windows, and to auto-update or phone home regularly.
So, what MAY sound like a no-brainer installation at first glance, REALLY adds problems that many users don't understand. It's rare for a CD that comes with hardware to specifically explain what parts of the included software is necessary for using the hardware, and what parts aren't needed.
Somewhere down the line, in total frustration, the user calls the repair shop, or the hardware's tech support, trying to figure out why things aren't working right, and eventually people like me (the friend who helps out for free) will help them to uninstall all the crap "extras" and reinstall just the driver and their computing life gets more simple and easy to handle for them.
There's frustration for Windows users by the boatload, it's just that it often comes AFTER that easy "automagic" installation wizard has finished and the system reboots.
2. Increasingly I wish I used Linux as my primary home OS, the problems are my most used and beloved applications are Photoshop and 3DS Max. Now, before people say "Gimp and Blender!" I have tried both, and I'm sorry, as fine as they are, they are not PS and 3DSM, not even close. And don't even act like Wine is ready to run my apps and give my any kind of reasonable performance. I didn't build a hot ass dual core system so I could wait longer for scenes to render off, thanks.
The point is I would love to be using Ubuntu as my workstation OS in my house and be ditch Windows and associated. I think the platform is very mature, easier to use and can look great. Most people approaching computer literacy and beyond agree with me.
So to the OSS people in the world: Enough with the endless optimization of the kernel and whatnot; it's already great, I mean, keep on trucking on it and everything, but the thing that's holding people back is the SOFTWARE AVAILABLE. Get a good image editor, one that can compete with PS (No, Gimp does not) get a good 3D app (Sorry, Blender does not, Maya for Linux: gone (Thanks Autodesk!) get a real Office killer, etc.
And now someone will say: You want it so bad, you write it. Well, I am not a programmer, I am a user. I don't want to be a programmer. I want to be a user. I want to use the OS that suits my needs the best. Linux, as an OS, is fucking awesome. I would love to use it, but until there's software running on it I can use, what's the point?
Let's face it his major complaints were :
...I use linux exclusively and have seen all three problems as well. Things are much better than a few years ago but there are still problems.
1) proprietary media apps not working
2) MS created spreadsheets/word docs having problems
3) some of his gadgets not working
Suprising no one thanks him for what is actually a fairly honest review of the situation, from a fairly open minded reviewer.
One thing he could have mentioned, but did not...is that the support for the issues he had are better solved via cooperation from gadget venders and format creators. Open format docs and media formats work great in both linux and windows. It's hard for linux to catch up in these areas due to the lack of standards.
It's only free if your time is worthless.
Rubbish. Just because a part of your time has no monetary value does not make it worthless. If you want to take your implication to the logical extreme then every minute of everybody else's time is worth something, ergo nothing is ever free.
Even at a more practical level, accounting for time in such a way is naive at best. An educated user is one who is far less likely to experience the same problem. On top of that you might just learn new skills, which can be quite valuable in their own right in certain circumstances. There are plenty of people out there who have voluntarily put lots of their own time into computer security, for no monetary reward (kernel developers, I'm looking in your direction), and yet you can bet they've got a lot out of it.
At the risk of flogging a dead analogy, if you got a flat on the motorway you could (a) change the tyre yourself and possibly learn a useful skill for the future, or (b) sit in the car, wait for the AA to turn up and pay them to do it for you. Both are equally valid ways of getting the job done. One costs you money, the other is free and gives you a useful skill to boot. I know which one I would choose.
It seems that a lot of people find it difficult to get multimedia apps working on their Linux systems. Last week I installed FC5 on my PIII Thinkpad. Out-of-the-box multimedia support was pretty bad. I didsome searching on Google and found several sites about upgrading. They involved adding new repositories and then installing with YUM. What I did was add the repository and then use the graphical interface to select the packages and click install. it was pretty painless. Now I can even view WMV and ASF files.
Disclaimer: Even though I've never run a Linux desktop until last week, I administrate several linux servers, so I guess I'm not an "ordinary" PC user.
FC5 Tips & Tricks
Personal FC5 Installation Guide
"It's because they're stupid, that's why. That's why everybody does everything." -Homer Simpson
Linux is too difficult to install anything for the average person. So now the linux zealot shouts debian or ubuntu as the perfect answer.... But they are both useless for a normal person. How can you expect them to type all the commands in? They don't even know what the terminal is and if they do manage to somehow find it and type everything in correctly, they probably wont know what any of the inevitable error messages mean.
.deb files for debian but the proper way to install those is usually to use apt. However, whichever method you use, you cannot install the program using a gui solely. Often you have to edit your repositories which is no easy task.
But the main hurdle is information propagation to the user. In windows a person can search on the web to find a program, download it, and install it simply by double (or single) clicking on icons. That doesn't happen in linux. It's a dead end. You have to install something based on what processor and distro you have and even then it's confusing. There's many places to get
So to sum up here's the process:
Windows: Search internet, download file, double click and follow onscreen instructions. Idiot proof.
Linux: Search internet, download file and search for install guide for your distro, follow instructions to install program, wonder why the program doesn't work because you either:
Weren't logged in as root,
Have a hardware conflict,
Have a software conflict,
Don't have the relevant dependancies,
Don't have development tools installed (e.g. a compiler),
Don't realise the program is full of critical bugs that prevent it from doing the most basic thing it says it can do,
Don't realise/understand how to configure the config files,
Have no idea that you have to run the program using the command line with relevant switches/arguments.
No comparison between Windows and Linux makes sense if you buy Windows pre-installed and then try to install Linux on top of that; of course, Linux is going to lose. But if you have ever tried to install Windows on random hardware, you know what at pain it can be trying to find all the necessary drivers.
Beyond that, it's naive to think that switching from any operating system to any other operating system is going to be painless. It's not the point or goal of Linux to make it easy to switch to it from Windows.
As much as I hate RMS, he is one of the few people actually trying to make it so you can have real, fast 3d graphics out of the box on linux. Linus and the other linux developers who bend over for nvidia and ati's binary only shit are the problem. If they demanded docs from nvidia and ati, you would have accelerated drivers that work out of the box, don't randomly crash X, don't randomly lock up your machine, and work all the time, no matter what other kernel options you have chosen. As long as people keep accepting half-assed, broken, unfixable binary drivers, you will never have decent hardware support.
What good is software that you can freely distribute if it's BAD software?
Most people don't care if they can give away their OS. Most people DO care that their OS easily accomodates file types they commonly use like PDF and MP3.
As long as Linux people try and tell the market that they can't have linux unless it's "free", Linux won't be successful in the market. Enjoy your sandbox.
paintball
He seems to avoid even touching the admin account. Most single user XP pcs have the only user as an administrator. I Have both XP PRO SP2 installed and also Debain. I can safely say that being at a native person windows is eaiser for me. But I like Debain much better. The only reason I don't use it full time is because Im a gamer. There is on way to run DirectX apps and even OpenGL using Wine is half-assed. There is however a distro Called Lindows/Linspire. It's not true linux (Not trying to start a flame war) but it makes it very easy for Windows people to switch.
It's not -1 Flamebait! It's +5 Funny. You just didn't get the joke...
Sure, interoperability and ease of use (application installation/enhancement) could be a bit clearer. There are going to be problems with some of the hardware out there, and there is definately a learning curve. The community is great, the software is fast, the ideas are plentiful and there are solutions for nearly anything. When I'm on a windows box, I feel trapped in a sandbox littered with dog shit. It's ok if you watch out for the shit and only want to play in the sand, but anything more and I'll find myself wanting a return to linux. Bash scripting, gnome, kino, gimp, openoffice, firefox, emerge, etc, etc, etc. Linux is so much more complete, it's no wonder there's a bit of a learning curve. Devote a weekend and an old harddrive and don't look back.
It doesn't matter how good you think free software is. If there are hundreds or thousands of choices, and Ubuntu (or whatever) doesn't integrate a functional program, it might as well not exist.
The user doesn't want to "use an application". He wants to do someting with a document. I put apps in the QuickLaunch menu, which I have run across the top of the screen. In the upper right corner my "media" folder is turned into a toolbar hanging off the edge of the QuickLaunch menu, such that I click on the chevrons to access its contents. I wrote a simple executable called new that creates a file with the name that I've typed on the command line. This avoids the whole question of what application do I use to generate the file I want to make. Windows has a new command on Explorer's right-click menu, but its a bit braindead in that if you have "Show file extensions" turned on, it selects the whole default filename including the extension to be edited, so you either have to retype the extension that you already had to specify, or find some other way of getting rid of the default text which consists of "New " + filetype + "Document".
You sir are an anomaly....
First of all, as I'm sure many people will point out, Linux doesn't have all the multimedia support we'd like it to have, because of all the legal issues involved. If the laws were changed, I guarantee it would be a matter of weeks before Linux could do all of what you're asking. It would be a big enough deal that Red Hat and Novell would probably drop whatever they were doing and make it work.
Second, it's not like Windows is without multimedia issues. Just yesterday, I was trying to make a video on my Windows machine with Movie Maker (complete piece of shit that it is). When I wanted to save the completed video, I was offered the choice of about 15 different formats. Which one was missing? The universal standard, of course: mpeg. Yet, I can take the same video and do the conversion, with no trouble, on Linux.
Personally, I think that, alone, should be enough to get Microsoft back in court. Linux's issues are caused by outside forces; Microsoft's issues are deliberate attempts to make it more difficult for users to switch.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
No, but as time goes to infinity the solution goes to yes. Linux is still a massive time sink.
Over the years I've tried to install three versions of Linux. So far I haven't gotten a single one to run properly on a machine. I've been working with computers for twenty years and have built dozens so I'm not a novice. Everytime it's been a different issue. The last was a week ago I was given a copy of Ubuntu Live. On my main system it claimed my CD drive was defective. It's a brand new top of the line Plexor DVD drive and works perfectly so I tried it on another machine. That one it didn't like the processor, complained about it not supporting Long Page. I tried Mandrake a couple of years ago and inspite of it claiming it shipped with driver support for my video card it didn't. It just flashed at me until it locked up. There seemed to be no mode for installing drivers even if I could find them. I never once got tech support or help from a forum inspite of numerous posts. Could I eventually get a copy of Linux installed on a machine if I tried hard enough? I'm sure I could be the point is I've never had this much trouble with Windows going back preWindows to DOS. The joy should be from using the operating system not from the sense of accomplishment after spending days installing and configuring it. Each machine also seems to have it's own challenges and it never appears to have the same issue with two different machines. I've checked into prebuilt machines, only interested in professional level ones. Most seem to cost more inspite of having a basically free, at least cheap, operating system. Until I can drop a disk into the drive and get Linux to install with minimal hassles it's just not practical and most people will have the same issue with it. If they can't get Linux down to an easy install on 90% of the machines out there it will remain in the realm of tinkerers and companies with the time and money to deal with the issues.
I like linux today, but I absolutely loved it back in '95. I loved it all through the 90s actually, because it was damn impressive what it managed to do. In '95 a Linux machine with X and a basic wm was way cooler and for certain things much more useful than a DOS and windows 3.11 machine. For as long as windows 9x was the norm, linux was a very impressive alternative and you had plenty of resons to laugh at the common windowses at the time. They felt like toys in comparison.
;-)
However, there was never a good reason to laugh at NT. I think the biggest blow so far to Linux was the switch MS made with XP. No longer any windows 9x. Every PC now sells with "Windows NT 2001". There is almost nothing you can do in Linux that you can't also do in XP, but the reverse is just not true. Windows has always had a lot of capabilities that Linux lacked of course (games, apps, drivers) but prior to XP there was also a ton of things Linux could do that Windows 9x could not.
XP and most apps that run under it today are stable, the filesystem is advanced and mature, multiprocessor support and multitasking is top-notch, just about any application, service, programming language or even unix shell is available for XP. There are very few technical reasons to switch from XP to anything else.
I think Linux has a way to go, but the good news is that it is never sitting still. Even Debian releases new versions more often than MS these days.
because there are too many legal hurdles.
Distros will not be able to come equipped with the ability to play all the patent-encumbered media formats, so linux newbies will say, "what, ubuntu doesn't play my mp3s on a fresh install? I'm switching back to windows."
And when new linux users complain of drivers not being installed automatically, they're probably thinking of their new ATI or Nvidia card that have proprietary, GPL unfriendly drivers.
-------
Incite and flee.
I'd read the article and comment abut it, but it takes more time than I am willing to exert, so I wont.
I don't know what distro some of you folks are using, but the ONLY problems I have had are related to not being able to play multimedia stuffs (DVD, MP3, etc.) I stick the CD or DVD in, set my bios to boot from CD-ROM, and WHACH!! I am off and installing whatever distro I happen to want to play with this week. I have installed Ubuntu, OpenSuSE, Fedors, and Mandriva, ALL of them recognised my hardware, external HDD, NIC, Video, etc. Are folks trying to use Redhat disks from 1996 or something?!? I still run Windows, but my master boot record contains GRUB, and the only reason I keep windows around is to play Guild Wars!!!!!!!!!
----- I have bad karma for a reason! -----
I think the problem isn't the OS its misguided expectations on the part of this individual user. Linux community should stress its a different way of doing things. In most cases it works better but there are bound to be hickups when it comes to things like interoperability. I mean there are solutions for everything anyone will ever want to do but they may not work with the solutions that are available in windows. Thats the difference.
I don't think 100% interoperability will ever be possible. If people aren't willing at some point to bite the bullet when they switch they will never realize that potential of this system. Its a different system and there is a learning curve. What people tend to do when they switch is that the solutions in Linux will automatically work with Windows solutions. That usually doesn't happen. What Linux provides is a good way to replace apps in windows completely not create an alternative that will work 100% with windows apps. The apps to replace windows apps are there. There is some interoperability with Office but its definitely not 100%.
Part of the problem is that windows people automatically think that Linux developers will automatically cater to their whims. That doesn't happen when it comes to interoperability. The new Linux app may not work with your windows app. So make a choice and go with it. If you don't want to switch don't. But don't say the different solution is bad because it doesn't work for you your wrong too.
The author entirely missed the most basic facts: the hings he wanted to work well with Linux didn't work, not because open source programmers are a bunch of incompetent jerks, but simply because they're working with proprietary systems done by vendors that don't "play nice" with others sice they don't release specifications for they products. Which means open-source programmers have to reverse-engineer.
Blame Apple and Microsoft for incompatibilites, not open source programmers!
This, I believe, has to do with something that Stallman calls attention to: it's about the values.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
they need apps. Honestly, I could care less about the politics of the OS as long as my apps run, my data is safe, and I don't have to jerk around with all sort of configuration stupidity. At some point it's nice to earn a paycheck by doing "work" on these tools
This might well be the case, I was really trying to think of things that I do relatively often in Linux (or MacOS) but have never tried in Windows. So I have no idea what happens.
Actually even in MacOS it took me a while to figure how to burn an ISO image (with the hditool CLI utility IIRC).
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
I think a lot of you guys are rushing off to go save the world when all that was broken was a squeaky hinge. The first things I saw in this thread were complaints about what was unintuitive about Windows, discussions about executable file placement, and comparisons between the start menu and the OSX dock. Yet when you were learning how to drive your car, the fuel:air ratio and emmissions regulator in your engine were of less importance to you than turning on the engine, manipulating the pedals, and activating turn signals. Many Windows users, upon installing Linux, are left with an "Ok, now what?" response upon successfully installing an alternate Operating System. They have been handed the keys, but have no where to drive. As a result, they feel confused, and ultimately frustrated at the OS and begin the eventual march back to Windows. One possible solution is to follow what has been occuring in Firefox. There is certainly more functionality to be added to the vanilla installation, but rather than letting users decide what they are missing, and then track it down, it is presented to them in a manner that shows what they could do, should they install an extention, plugin, etc. Future developers would be wise to guide their users to what they could do, rather than just let them wander aimlessly.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
at the institute of 'duh'
That's the beauty of open source, no one gets to say what it is or isn't. People can do all sorts of things with it. You speak of Linux as if it were some monolithic project, which it isn't. So some companies have created less than spectacular desktop solutions. Take it up with those companies, don't blame Linux for not being what you think it should be. Don't assume there is some kind of Central Linux Administration that decides what it should be. Don't assume there is some goal that everyone can agree we all should be working towards.
There are companies that make decent Linux based Windows replacements, for those who want such a thing. No one is going to read your mind, know that's what you want, and drop one in your lap. Same here as in the rest of the world.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And further more are the pseuo-geeks who Google up the most complicated instructions, then claim OSS/Linux is so difficult to use. I use Fedora, and I am sure there are distros even _more_ user friendly than Fedora. But for the full multimedia experience in Fedora, there is only one time that one _must_ use the console, and that would be to add repos to yum. After that, you _might_ want to install an easier to use GUI frontend for yum. But after that, it is all clicking. OF course no one will stop you from typing in 15 commands. But even then, i see people typing in 5 commands per one that they actually should. What's up with that? No one's begging anyone else to use Linux, if you don't like it, don't use. That's the whole point of choice. But please, don't use it, complicte things, then present the scenario as if it could be no better. That's just not cool.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
These articles often come out and are similar, this
one seemed a bit more accomodating. None the lese
an honest evaluation would have this author with two
of these laptops side by side. Both with empty
unformated drives. And two installation sets.
The newest Xandros installation set(or some such), and
the newest windows instatation set.
Then write an honest article comparion oranges to oranges.
If the WSJ writer discovered installing Xandros was more
simple for the 'average' user, would the Journal headline
read "Linux easier to install then Windows!". Uh..no.
--User0x45
"...anybody can easily switch to Linux from Windows seem totally oversold" Gimme a break. Windows is much harder to keep running IMO. I can't count the number of times I've had to rebuild due to add/spyware or viruses. Yes - my fault for not buying and running protection. I recently installed Umbuntu Linux and my 8 year old daughter can switch between XP and Linux seemlessly once I got things dialed in. Which was suprisingly easy compared to the old red hat distros. If you want to spend the money and the time to keep XP running, be my guest. You're missing a great world of cool things that are free and run without crashing. Why the hell should we pay to use a computer? Especially a bloated overated corperate driven piece of crap like M$.
Regardless of where you put the blame, the point is this: Linux is still not ready enough for the average user. Case in point: I'm a computer science major at a respected university and have spent almost 4 years working with linux (Slackware, SuSE, Fedora) and I have spent the entire day trying to get wireless networking up on a buddy's computer. With the arcane config files and command-line stuff that I've had to use (and still am not finished with), there's no way someone who just points-and-clicks could have figured it all out.
...the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
You might not have heard about Mepis because you are no longer a newbie. The author managed to find Xandros, which is good. Mepis is the other distribution which specificall aims at ease of use and has won awards for it. It's one of the better Debian installers, because it runs live and has a GUI installer. The author might have done better had he consulted a LUG rather than a Dummies book, but overall he did very well.
You're not gonna win-over an already confused user by presenting him or her with 50 more obscure and semi-obscure choices. That person is just gonna say "fuck it" and stick with what he or she knows: Windows.
The author concludes: "I'll continue to toy with Xandros, and look at upgrades of other distributions to see if I can overcome the hurdles. In exchange for a reasonable amount of time, I'd jump at the chance to gain the speed, security and savings promised by Linux -- and to feel that Microsoft has a bit more competition."
A distribution for Vaio is just what he needs and Mepis has some of the other features he missed. Mepis comes with GTK pod and Amrok, so it will talk to his iPod without help from iTunes. Because I've avoided Vaio, I can't say how well Mepis will deal with his hardware, but it should do as well as Fedora.
Also, people want to install something with staying power. Half the distros out there are gonna be gone in a couple of years, replaced by a whole new set. How can you have faith installing something you've never heard of?
Mepis has been around a long time and has a considerable user community. It's not going anywhere. Have some faith and consider your options I Mepis more than I trust Microsoft, how about you?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have tried several linux distributions in the past (RedHat, SuSe, Knoppix and I'm about to try Ubuntu), and allthough I'm a Linux fan, I always seem to return to Windows. Why? Because most of the applications I know run on Windows, and I do not want to spend my time looking for alternatives.
A friend of mine has made the switch from Windows to Linux in an entirely different fashion: he made a backup of all his important data, formatted ALL his PCs, and installed SuSe Linux on each and everyone of them. Whereas I had an easy way back (dual-boot), he forced himself to "hang on" until he got the hang of the system. Nowadays Linux is the only thing he uses, and he won't return to Windows. I've always wanted to make a clean break, but am reluctant to do so, and therefor I always end up dual-boot.
I've refused to make the switch from 2000 Professional to WinXp Professional. As soon as Vista comes out, I'll make my own clean break.
Another aspect of the matter is when you want to make the switch. Some years ago, two colleagues and I were forced to use Unix at work - and being thrown into the deep end in such a situation really makes you try and do the best you can, whereas the same situation at home would have driven you back to what you know. In the end we got used to Unix, but the fact that we were forced to use a system we did not know very well gave us a lot of trouble we could have done without. Editing a config file you don't know about, or can't seem to find is very frustrating if you need to do it against a deadline, whereas at home you'd take your time to learn the steps needed to do so.
In the end, my two colleagues ended up hating Unix (and according to them, Linux as well), just because of this bad experience. Each time I mention some distribution like Knoppix or Ubuntu to one of them, he tells me that, yes, it may be nice and easy to work with, but "do you remember back then?" .
It all boils down to this imho: the best way to get a user to switch, is to make a clean break, and make sure that he/she WANTS to make the switch. Not just because people tell him/her that Linux is better, but because he/she KNOWS that it's better for him/her.
The only reason so many people keep on clinging to Windows, is because it feels "safe" to them. It's what they know and have known.
http://jcsnippets.atspace.com/ - a collection of Java & C# snippets
The short but accurate answer (I know that's not at all popular on /.) is that people will switch when it's time to replace their old system and when they go down to WalMart (or wherever) and they have a choice to buy a system that has Linux preinstalled and it comes with monitor, printer, CD/DVD reader/writer/player, fully multimedia capable, etc. Until that happens, switching to Linux is simply not going to be a common occurance. Period!
Heard any good sigs lately?
This weekend, a Brazilian friend of my wife came to visit and needed to do some websurfing. I set her up with Mozilla on a Debian machine and away she went. After some time, I came back to see how she was doing (no problems). I told her that she may have noticed that this operating system seemed a little different to what she was probably used to. She took one glance at the screen and said: "This is Linux" in a rather affirmative way. Oh...I had forgotten...the Brazilian government, her employer, had switched to Linux last year.
I asked her if they still use Windows in her office on any PCs, and she said, "No, the whole office switched over".
I asked her if there were any difficulties in switching over to Linux. She shrugged...paused...and answered: "No...No...None".
I asked if they provided some training. She said: "Yes, we had some training...a little".
I asked if anyone cared, or found it difficult. She again shrugged, almost laughed, and said: "No. I don't think anyone cared at all. No problems."
And, there you have it.
Also, my wife, who never used computers much before, has no difficulty using our system. Of course, I've spent hours learning how to be a sysadmin. But, on the other hand, we have a highly customized system that does a lot of things that Windows couldn't do. Well...*one* version of Windows could do this, and another could do that.
And, to top it off, all that time spent learning the various systems is not wasted since now I could start a small-sized company without much, if any, tech support, for free. If the computer were the equivalent of the store, I've learned how to lay the concrete and bricks, put up the sign, do the wiring and turn on the lights. With Debian, I even upgrade all those things constantly. It's not always easy, although it usually is. But, again, this isn't anything I could do with Windows without paying and still likely having problems.
But, perhaps the best evidence off all that Linux is going to continue to make headway on the desktop is the stock symbol MSFT.
5 years...10...based on these comments, you could take a couple
centuries and you guys still won't get it.
"These people" who you are claiming should learn more, research
more, etc...you are SO off base it is not even funny. That is
where Microsoft pwned all and continues to do so today. They,
for a much larger part, seem to get it.
The "it" is that 99% of daily computer users are not even moderately
knowledgable about computers. That is pretty straight forward and
not a lot of debate, I imagine.
Here is the part that you Xnix hippies just cannot seem to get your
brains around: They don't care about this lack of knowledge, nor
do they have any desire to address it. My grandmother wants to send
email. Period. That's it.
Now, you guys will spend the next N years whining and complaining that
if these people just took some time to learn about this stuff that has
absolutely no interest for them, or if they invested some time researching
things that A. they couldn't care less about, B. can't properly
appreciate due to lack of understanding and C. they SHOULDN'T have to
care about...it is silly.
Saying that my grandmother, mother, cousin, etc. would be SO much better
off in life and on the fast track to nirvana if they just invested in
something that has little to no value for them...It is such an assinine
argument, it is the only time that I confidently can walk up to people
who are exponentially smarter than I and ask, "Are you really that dense?"
For people who thrive on concepts like if (true), to go down a path that
just is so far from basic simple common sense, I just don't get it.
Five years will not matter. Five hundred thousand years will not matter.
Infinity would not change the issue if your community cannot do what they
should have learned the first day in their very first computer science
class: identify the problem.
These same Linux zealots are the people who's eyes glaze over when someone tells them they could change their own oil in their car
That generalization is so wrong it's funny. I change my own oil for the exact same reason I use Linux: I get better results when I do it myself. Half the time, when somebody else changes my oil/radiator fluid/etc, the cap doesn't get put back on, along with it costing an arm and a leg. And I usually have to listen to ten minutes of sales pitches on why my car needs the johnson rod adjusted. Why would I pay more for shoddy work and hassle?
Linux isn't some conspiracy of computer professionals to make everyone feel stupid about computers. It's a conspiracy of generally intelligent people to make everyone take some interest in doing things for themselves and not rely on giant corporations and $6/hr flunkies to do everything for you. Hopefully you may even *learn* something in the process.
The home page warned me that the site's full functionality required Windows or a Macintosh operating system, but my electronic bill payments went through just the same.
Yeah, but you didn't get the popups or active-X crap. And you probably didn't get the flash based ads, either. Poor soul! Imagine, not being able to enjoy all that fine advertising!
I couldn't transfer, via email or a disk, some complicated word-processor and spreadsheet files between my Linux system at home and Microsoft Windows on my work PC.
That's because Microsoft's $500.00 office suite is a piece of garbage, and was intentionally designed to be a piece of garbege that wouldn't interoperate.
At least that's what I think he means, maybe he's talking about how hard it is to get Microsoft to network with Linux (I haven't done so since Win 98 and Mandrake 6, maybe things are better now)
But he agrees that chasing down and installing them would likely go beyond the abilities of a Linux novice.
LOL! So is installing Windows.
Smaller manufacturers, like Microtel Computer Systems and Systemax Manufacturing Inc., make computers with Linspire installed
Comparing apples to oranges? Or apples to shoes? Take an old Linux box and see if you can get Windows running, smarty!
The programs worked well in and of themselves -- similar to Office's programs. They opened and saved files more quickly and didn't get hung up processing the way Office does from time to time. I was able to send files back and forth between Word on my work computer and OpenOffice's word processor, Writer, on my home PC.
That's why you didn't like Linux? I'm confused...
While solutions may exist to almost every problem I encountered, I was willing to invest only a limited amount of time...
How much time did you invest in learning Windows? How much time do you invest in getting rid of malware?
It's an age-old problem, people:
.mov, .avi, .wmv, .mp3, .pdf, etc. This means all the support devices, as well. Out-of-the-box.
* You cannot remove the current zeitgeist unless you have a massively superior product.
* You do not get to define superior. The large percentage of your potential market does.
In other words, linux needs to be a better solution for home use for most of the people who use a machine at home. This is econ/business/psychology 101, people. The fact that this comes up as often as it does and there is always a collection of idiots believing that the world needs to suck it up and learn to use their machines (learn how to be a linux administrator) reflects how inept the linux community is at facing these issues and how ignorant they are to the monumental task that faces them.
If you want to get people using your product, you have to acknowledge what they want. Linux, as a community, is piss-poor at that. Microsoft employs psychoperceptionists. They actually ask people how they want things to work. Linux is a collection of systems written by dispersed people who hardly communicate with each other, much less with a random cross-section of a target market.
Hell, if you need a better example of what it takes for an underdog to triumph, look at Apple and all the success they've enjoyed recently. Not only are they building a superior (defined by the majority of users) product, but they are listening to their potential markets, not preaching to them.
* Get multimedia working, people.
* Get it working with windows file/printer sharing. Out-of-the-box.
* Get linux working with people's devices; printers, cameras, faxes, and mp3 players. Out-of-the-box.
* Get interconnectivity working. People use MS products at work. Quit whining/preaching about it and get it working. You have to get them using linux before you can get them to quit using MS.
* Stop the ivory tower bullshit. The "You clearly don't understand linux" thing (and I fully expect to get responses like that) only tells people that they are going to have to spend a great deal of time on linux before they can use it. Goodbye potential user.
* Get some acceptable dev tools. Without them, you lose the software developers who create the value-add that people adopt your OS for: Get some software providers working with you. And I mean the big ones. Blizzard Entertainment. Adobe.
There will be plenty of people who try to argue that I've no idea what I'm talking about. They are deluding themselves. A user's perception is his reality, and so the perception that linux is lacking in these things _is_ the reality that it _is_ lacking. And remember, these are just the things that we need to be considered on a par with MS. You have to do all this and MUCH more to be thought of as superior.
What is an ordinary user?
Were they ordinary users before they ran Windows?
Linux is no more difficult to use than Windows - if you discount the serious installation problems that software supplied as source presents for users of limited knowledge (ie. we need graphical installer/uninstallers on Linux)
I decided to buy an upgrade copy of Windows XP for $100. That normally wouldn't be a good idea since it doesn't upgrade the file system.
AFAIK, you can do a full install of Windows XP from the "Upgrade" disc as long as you throw a copy of Win98/ME/etc. in the drive first to "prove" you are qualified for an upgrade. I've never trusted an install of WinXP over an existing Win9X system... FAT32 with WinXP just makes me cringe.
I think he's right though, that the "average" computer user would not want to install Linux just to browse the web and email. But the "average" computer user can't even navigate to a folder if you tell them where it is (other than the desktop... maybe).
- For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism.
The unfortunate problem with Linux is that Microsoft got there first, and as the systems are inherently different, it's very hard for distributors to ease the learning curve between the two. People have already been trained to use Windows. A lot of them probably found it quite hard to learn the quirks of Windows and may well be scared of going through all that again. Also, as every man and his dog seems to use Windows, if someone gets caught up with something, they can always ask a friend for help - something which is not possible when you're running Linux.
Of course, Apple is in a different boat as their OS can only be run on their own hardware, which it comes pre-installed on, and I think 99% of the problems people have with Linux are installation-related.
George Wright
>Not at all. This is not even fragmentation. You forgot that this is FOSS here.
>All these distros are compatible.
I've got a BS in Computer Science, and I didn't know that. I haven't done much with Unix in about 10 years, back when I played with HP-UX. Since that time, I've been vaguely aware of all these distributions of Linux, but didn't know what differentiated them, what made one a better choice than another, or that they were all "compatible".
How would your average PC user know?
>Nobody does that. Mandriva will present you Mandriva commercial offerings
>and nothing else. Go check their website if you don't believe me. Yes,
>what you are saying is stupid, you just have to realise it.
No, you have misunderstood what he was saying. He was not claiming that any one company will present 50 different choices. Obviously if you go to Red Hat's web site you are most likely going to be presented with the Red Hat distribution.
He was saying that the user is presented with many many choices of distributions, presented by "the world". The "you" in his sentence was not anyone in particular.
Steve
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
Hey this story that I wrote is about trying out OS X after years of using Linux. It's sort of in the same genre of this original posting so I thought I'd put it here in case anybody was interested. Leave your snarky comments at my journal entry. http://linux.slashdot.org/~andy314159pi/journal/13 5162
Ok geeks, how many of us can rebuild our car? How many of us know the compression ratios of the engine or where to find the fuel pump? How many of us are aware of the nuances of how the exhaust pipe is shaped for best fuel economy? How many people could diagram a torque converter, its interface with the automatic transmission and even point out an error if a diagram that they saw?
I'm guessing very few. Most of us would take our car to a mechanic if it were to break because we don't have the specialized knowledge set to diagnose and fix it. Mechanics always talk about the stupid easily fixable things people bring in their cars for.
My point is that most of us just want a car that goes. After I buy a Nissan, I might also buy floormats to keep it clean, but I don't have to choose which spark plugs to use if I want to go into a high elevation climate. The car just goes! I put in gas, change the oil, and it goes. Some poeple drive manual, some drive automatic, that is the difference between interfaces, like MacOS vs WinXP. Sure there are technical reasons why each might be better under the hood, like front vs rear wheel drive, but honestly they're both tools to get the job done. If they don't go when I buy them, I take them back.
Installing drivers should be like 'installing' gasoline: readily available and easy to do. Readily available doesn't mean it exists, it means it can be found right under your nose. Listen to yourselves! Installing something as simple as firefox on Ubuntu requires a huge number of non-intuitive steps that must be hand copies perfectly into a command prompt. How does that save the user work? https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FirefoxNewVersion
All people really want out of OS is for it to save them more and more time. Microsoft and Macintosh get this. You never Need to go to prompt for any daily or monthly or even yearly task. Your click the button, it works. Our job as geeks is to make sure the abstraction is so total that the user never needs to know what kernel version they are running much less what file system they are using. Until we can understand that the average user will never want or be able to migrate to Linux without a gun pointed to their head.
An example - I have 5 good friends who are expert level computer hobbyists. They all migrated to linux, but it required too much overhead out of their daily lives to keep. They all learned linux, really liked a lot of things about it, and switched back. When you can tell me why, then you will understand whats wrong with linux today.
but here we are. More and more people seem to forget that the science half of computer science isn't there just to help make a fancy phrase. I was lucky and had good science teachers in high school, which helped get me really into computers. I don't see nearly as many kids who're interested in science as there were when I went to high school. It's a shame on two parts; one, those kids are going to grow up without the basic problem-solving and research skills that a good education in the sciences provides, meaning they'll end up being the dumbasses calling you because they forgot their fucking login info again. Two, without having science stressed enough in heir own educations, there's a good chance that they won't pass the fever on to their kids and we'll all have more incompetent people to deal with. I use both Windows and Linux. I started with Windows and got into Linux maybe 5 or 6 years later. Linux is probably something you should learn on your own time, not while you're at work. If you have the time to sit there and do a little (HAHAHAHAH) reading, you'll get it. It's not hard. The first time I used a computer, I didn't know anything about DOS or Windows. Then I learned how to use it. The same goes for Linux. I didn't know it, then I learned it. Does anyone else ever remember being given some sort of learning-for-a-lifetime speech in school? Or seeing the posters? They weren't kidding.
It's a user-customizable collection of short-cuts and commands.
Most users don't care that one of these things is not like the other (the run complaint) or that it kitbashes commands and concepts. In fact, it's pretty intuitive in that they knew these are the things users will use, and thus put them in the place users will look for (one of what... 4 buttons, maybe 5 when you open up a fresh computer?)
I agree alot with alot of different viewpoints. there are certain attributes that are truly excellent about linux, and others that are huge pitfalls. while i nthe short time since i first tried out a few linux distros back in oh maybe '99/'00 there have been huge improvements made into ease of use. but there is a long way to go. linux in its current state still reminds me alot of the state windows was in in the mid nineties, minus the stability issues. alot of things didn't work correctly, you still had to go into a half dos mode to get some things running correctly and so forth. there are a few distros that are trying to make an effort to be an invitiation of sorts to the linux expeirience, making installs more "wizard" like and so forth. but as many have pointed out linux still has some glaring shortcomings, hard to find componets to 'everyday' things that people are used to like mp3, video, dvd, games. i know there are solutions to all of these, as has also been pointed out, but they are also hard to find. i know the average user (think your mom) is not going to spend hours and hours on irc channels putting up with elitist users that will do nothing more than flame, or spend a week on sites like sourceforge trying to locate some mysterious program or libraries or what have you. untill there is some standardization of what is available in a linux distro, and what can be expected from them generally and reasonably, linux will remain for the programmer hobbyist/ server users.
Thanks for giving me a laugh.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
switcher \'swi`ch &r\, n.
A person who thinks that they are a Mac user but are really just trying to be. The mistake they make is to try to become a Mac user, when real Mac users are all about not trying to be anything and following your own rules. There is no fashion code to being a Mac user. There are no rules as to what applications you have to run.
Recent converts like you are ruining the old school Mac community because you are posers. Apple releases one OS that popularizes Fitts' law and the Genie effect, and suddenly people assume being a Mac user is all about owning a Mac. But a real Mac user is born, not made. You "switchers" are misrepresenting yourselves and the Mac platform. You're giving people the wrong idea of what Macintosh is.
switcher: shops at hot topic, thinks Firefox is a good Mac app, waiting for OS X port of PayrollPro 2000, follows any hint of a fashion trend (instead of setting them!), wouldn't know Clarus from Carl Sagan.
real Mac user: someone true to who they are, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules and they have no respect for the status quo. The ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world.
Not a hope. Every "ordinary" PC user (def: don't know much & could care even less) should be on a Mac. Easier to use, safer, more reliable & longer-lived than a Windows box. Only committed tinkerers will ever be really happy with Linux.
...it wasn't ready for the desktop. Yeah, mod me redundant, I know I'm not the only one in this case...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
The single biggest problem I see in Mac OS is that it matters if an app is running, combined with the single menubar. If I click on the "Internet Explorer" icon on Windows, a browser always pops up. If I click on the Safari icon to open a web browser, I expect a web browser to pop up.
Unfortunately, that only happens if Safari is not already running. If Safari is running and I close all of its open windows, it keeps running with the only indication being that the menu bar changes when I click its icon on the dock.
The Windows procedure for opening a browser window is this:
1. click "IE" icon on Start menu, desktop, QuickLaunch bar, or where ever you decide you like it best
The OS X procedure for opening a browser window is this:
1. click on Safari icon in dock
2. if a browser window does not pop up, check menu bar to make sure that it shows Safari's menu
3. open "File" menu (even though you don't want to open a file)
4. select "New Window"
Of course, this is a problem with pretty much all Mac apps. Since they don't exit when you close the last window, and all menu bars look pretty much alike at first glance, it's never obvious whether launching the app didn't work or if it's just still running from when you used it last week. This behavior was fine -- and expected -- 20 years ago when you could only have a single app launched at a time and it had to be loaded from floppy disk, but it is ridiculous now that MultiFinder has been invented!
dom
After coming here for months, I wanted to try Linux. I am very experienced with Windows and really have had little to no issues, but I wouildn't call myself a Fanboy. The wife is a die hard Apple person, so over the years I've gotten pretty good about working that side of a fence. I like both OS's equally well, as MS does some things better, and Apple does other better. While the pain and the triumphs of my recent Linux conversion are all fresh, let me give you a newbie's POV. I went with Ubuntu, as it seemed to be the easiest to start with (for now, let's not argue this issue). Since I had an old laptop, I formatted Windows off and did a total, clean install of Ubuntu. Only 2 things didn't work out of the box, screen resolution and wifi. It took a week to get the screen resolution fixed, and I had a ton of help on all the different forums and wiki's. It took another week to get the wifi to work, with the same support. Maybe my expectations weren't very high, but other than those 2 major issues, I thought it was a pretty good transition. I haven't tried DVD, since this old brick probably wouldn't do a very good job anyway. I ripped some CD's the other night just to see of it would, and it did it with no problem. I did have to install Xfce to make this all usable, Gnome was just too hungry for my laptop. And you really wanna get a feel for how painful this can be to some people, go to the Ubuntu Absolute beginner's forum. They are trying, and they are learning, but you get a good feel for how much people struggle in the beginning. Too many experienced Linux users take some of the basic commands for granted. Now to try this on my much newer, more powerful dekstop. I ran the Live CD for the beta coming out, almost everything worked great. With my new found 2 week old knowledge I was able to reconfigure and tweek those things that needed it. When Dapper releases gold on June 1st, it will be installed on my second drive for dual booting. We'll see what happens after that. Conclusion, it is somewhat of a learning curve, but not insurmountable. It was a lot more than going from XP to OS X, which to me were very similar in how the UI works. In Linux, there were small things that shouldn't have been so hard. As far as the difference in installing XP drivers and installing what I needed to get hardware working in Linux, it was a huge difference. Windows (and OS X) installs take time, but are very easy. For the new person, getting simple things going can be frustrating and appear complex. I like Linux and will continue to learn. I look forward to my dual boot system. I'm sure eventually I'll ween off Windows entirely. As far as Linux being ready for Joe User, it's not quite there yet, but getting close.
Due to the huge response to this thread I think its obvious that this IS a huge issue. Many have said they found it easier setting up Ubuntu than XP re hardware "just working". But many more the to contrary. I have (like many of you) a wide and extensive range of hardware and virtual platforms. Ranging from a stonking bleeding edge workstation, to an 8 yearold 366 laptop, to VPC on various setups. I'm 100% certain that XP blows Ubuntu out of the water when it comes to things "just working". Whether the drivers are not available, not installed, not configure, or simply badly written, NOTHING works out of the box. VPC won't let you install without a LOT of fiddling (some of which involves clicking options on a corruptted screen display), and don't get me started on hyperthreading enabled systems, wireless - er nope, sound - nope (it's rare XP won't get you sound going), EVEN my mouse!
don't get me wrong, I love OSS, and Ubuntu espcially, but the debate is if its ready for the unwashed. And no! its not. Its not even at the stage where I'll use it for work (I see it more of a hobby at the mo). But it's so very close to being very useful to huge numbers of people. M$ are likely to get more and more snippy about pirate copies of their OS on machines (to the point where they'll simply not work any more). People in India, China, Africa, South America, infact anyone wanting to save cash, will flood to it in their droves as soon as these issues of 'automagic' hardware recognistion and error free driving of these devices are squashed for the majority.
And then Macromedia, Real, Adobe, even M$ will happily bow to the whims of the hundreds of millions of new users on Linux. And the gripes of "I can't open that on my system" will automagically dissapear too.
Because you can - or because you should?
A lot of comments have been made here about lack of distro support out of the box. Seems odd, but I think Gentoo has atually done the best job here.
For instance, people talk about week-long searches to get DVD playback to work under Debian, or even Ubuntu! On Gentoo, I do this:
emerge xine
Done and done. Or, mplayer -- people seem to be ignoring the fact that mplayer requires the commandline, so I will too. They focus more on how distros can't bundle mplayer and all the codecs. Wha? I just do this:
emerge mplayer
emerge mplayer-bin # for the win32 codecs -- I'm on a 64-bit box
True, Gentoo is a lot more spartan "out of the box", but there really isn't much of an "out of the box" with Gentoo, you're doing it yourself anyway. I'll be the first to admit that it was harder to get everything working, but now I carry my Gentoo config files from box to box, and it takes me maybe 5-10 minutes of my time to get an equally functional Gentoo on a new box. Windows takes less computer time, but who cares, I can go watch TV for a bit, or use another computer -- it took me several hours to get Windows XP (a legitimate copy) working on this box, vs 5-10 minutes for Gentoo. And it was a 64-bit Gentoo!
Yes, there's still work to be done. However, this reviewer hit the critical problem -- installation of anything except OS X is always going to be hard -- hard to make a good installer, and hard for users to use even the best installer. Only reason OS X wins is limited hardware support -- either you have a Mac and it installs fine, or you don't and it doesn't even try.
So, if you want to give Linux a serious shot, find a LUG and get them to install it for you. If they're unhelpful, use the old underhanded trick of "Linux sucks because it can't do _____" and they'll be rushing to help you do whatever it was. Once it's installed and they've taught you some basics, you can make a fair comparison with a preinstalled Windows.
Yes, there will still be legitimate complaints, but I don't consider "Stuff doesn't magically work" to be a legitimate complaint, even for Knoppix.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
So if it doesn't work out of the box it's broken?t ml
Seems like all the Windows and Macintosh users want instant gratification with no work. And why not the admins are used to clicking on things and so are the users. No knowledge required.
Sure, computers should be easy to use and for the most part are. But my god maybe a little bit of reading wouldn't kill you.
http://yolinux.com/TUTORIALS/LinuxTutorialVideo.h
I think that Linux could be easier if you take the control away and simply guide the user through preset options with no alternatives. Put the user in a complete moronic bliss that every user on Macintosh and Windows is accustomed to. And at the end of clicking on things you can say WoW! it works really really well.
"Sorry but Windows is a lot more intuitive. One of my old teachers went to China to teach kids computers. He sat them at a computer with Windows and Office. With minimal instruction the kids could easily find there way around and start typing a document."
Sorry but your claim that Windows is a lot more intuitive based on this example is spurious. A lot more intuitive than what? Did your old teacher try these Chinese kids with OS X and TextEdit, or Linux and Open Office? Giving an example without comparisons and then making such a sweeping statement is disingenuous at best."
Of course, this is based on observation. When I recently burned a bunch of knoppix CDs, I accidentally left one on the family's desk. My dad asked what it was, and I explained it to him. He thought it was interesting but didn't express any desire to try it out.
When my younger brother then installed malicious spyware that required hours of cleaning, he decided to pop it in. To his amazement, it worked beautifully. Since knoppix was able to detect everything and the web browser (konqueror/firefox) was right there to click, he was very satisfied.
In short, the serious problems with security flaws in the Operating System and the ease of shooting oneself in the foot on Windows made the majority of my family open to the idea of switching, and not even by my pushing. Other relatives went through a similar experience. I think if users go through this crap enough times when they realize that they don't have to, then perhaps they will switch.
Ease of desktop management is a necessity. If knoppix didn't "just work" when placed in the drive when the computer was booting, the story probably woouldn't be as nice.
Fun Zoid RPG
He either has a serious learning disability or he didn't try any of the more user friendly distributions. Fact is that distributions like ubuntu and slax come with all the functions an actual pc user would look for already set up and running.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
After the tests, representatives of Fedora, Linspire and Novell told me that Sony Vaios are known to have compatibility problems with Linux.
Let me fix that for you: Sony Vaios are known to have compatibility problems with Windows.
Seriously, if you've ever installed stock 2k or XP on a sony (especially a laptop) then you know what I mean. 10 "Unknown Device" entries that need drivers you're lucky if you can find on their web site. Drivers that all depend on some "Sony I/O controller" and "Sony management software" you have to find somewhere. Then half of them won't install, cryptically complaining "wrong model number", even though the one you downloaded is exactly what it says on the case. Oh, and the joy of function keys that won't work pretty much ever, because they're software based and the program for it isn't downloadable.
Your only other choice is to use the Sony-provided "Restore CD" that installs all sorts of OEM garbage you can never fully get rid of.
I don't want a copy of Visio or Word running in the background when I am trying to play a game, when I close it, I want it to close.
Well, that's not a problem on the Mac. (I kid, I kid!)
It damn well does matter what is running and what isn't. Every program you have spinning its wheels in the background is eating up memory.
"Memory" only in the virtual sense. If you start another app, MS Word gets its pages copied to disk. (Actually, only its dirty pages get copied to disk; the pages that represent the binary in Word.app simply get discarded, because it can reload those from Word.app again.)
Of course, if MS Word using CPU even when you're not using it, that would be a problem. But it doesn't appear to, here.
All modern operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux) have virtual memory systems. Programs that are "running", as long as they're not doing some background processing, don't actually steal physical memory from your precious game. Welcome to the 21st century.
If it doesn't close, or I leave it open, I want an indication of that.
On the Mac, there is an indication of that, but it's a subtle indication, because (for most apps) it's a subtle difference.
As Official Paladin of the Free Software Jihad surely you have a plan of action to counteract this dangerous trend?
Eliminating non human confirmed posts from Windoze machines would take care of your botnet and mailtool.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
There's a whole ubuntu forums thread on this topic...
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Can users ditch Windows for Linux? Screw that! I ditched Windows for FreeBSD!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
I can testify that it's damned difficult to get the hang of Windows after having learnt Unix or Linux well.
Not only that, I don't really see what's in it for me. I mean, for me Windows is:
- Harder
- Less useful for Work (granted, I could of course change job or department, but..)
- More expensive
- Illogical (nothing ever makes sense)
- Less stable.
All of these arguments can probably be reversed. The point of this post isn't to show that Linux is any better, only that ANY switch is difficult.
This story is about the place I used to work. We had Unix on the desktop, this was at the time that universities and academic institutions had good deals with Unix vendors on their workstations. Now, we grew, and got more administrative/economy people, and at one point management said that it was time to standardize platform on Windows. Those economists just love their excel spreadsheets. None of the engineers were particulary happy with it. But it wasn't until one of the secretaries uttered a tiny little "I think I would rather prefer staying with Unix" that the plan was reversed.
Now, the situation is a dual platform, mostly, Windows or Linux. And when I last year met this secretary, 10 years after I left the place, she was still a Linux user, still rather non-technical, but *use* it, she could!
So no - Linux isn't harder to use - only different. That is my firm belief.
Myself, I did once try to use Windows seriously on the desktop. That was when I first entered commercial world, in a consultant company. It even lasted around 2 years. I was, however, always a Unix guy, professionally. It simply made no sense for me having Windows on the desktop. After 2 years, I finally gave up and installed Linux. That was in 98/99. It felt like coming home after a long and tiring journey. Since then, I've been a happy Linux user, and I see more and more of my colleages in IT using Linux at the deskop.
P.S. TO GEORGE BUSH: you need to get a new make-up man. You were lookin' pretty haggard in the press today.
It's not just anti-circumvention laws. It's also the patents on the codecs that DVDs use, which cost money to license.
Live CD linux is the way to go...
/ramdisk "df" down to 1% on a 256 MB box, as all web apps load their home directory configuration just before they start. Most remove it on the way out, so the /ramdisk use remains low.
I have tried/tested Kanotix and PCLinuxOS, both do multimedia very well. Mostly, I like to listen to internet radio stations on ShoutCast.
Now, when it gets right down to productivity, I had to make my own knoppix remaster. I have older equipment, and some newer, so I stuck with the 2.4.26 kernel in knoppix 3.4.
What do I do with it? Maintain web pages, keep up with the news, do a little graphics work with Gimp. For the news, I packed a bunch of RSS feeds in Opera, 13 in all, and just to keep those who use Mozilla Firefox happy, I put some on that toolbar also.
My favorite applications are EmelFM and SciTE, which I put in the remaster, and enjoy using.
Here is my (long and detailed) Getting Started Guide, so you can see what I have been up to.
Also have a blog, with some screenshots there. I have lots of applications that I put together:
This livecd linux can switch between several built-in mouse cursor themes in seconds, has a dial-up wizard of sorts, can copy itself to any hard drive partition for remastering purposes, and has an automated remastering application that takes a lot of work off whoever is doing that. Leaves just the fun part, adding or removing applications
Just asks one question, which hard drive partition is the "master copy" located in. Answer that, and the system does the rest, your iso is ready soon (depending on speed of box) for burning to CD. You'll have your own customized operating system!
I have a Wallpaper Control Center that can easily handle the saving of downloaded (from skins.be, of course) wallpapers in the configs.tbz, so they can be restored, and zoomed to fit on the desktop to suit the user. Allows you to handle the downloaded image files immediately, so you get desktop wallpaper right now. Built-in wizards to help you with any problems. Once fixed, you have your wallpaper applied.
Lots of other fun features in that application. Many scripts had to be made to go behind the wallpaper interface. Same thing for the mouse cursor theme setup. Nobody else has that, you are stuck with a default cursor, probably too small, and hard to see on laptops. No so with mine.
Also have a front end for XMMS, so internet radio connections can be made in seconds. Click on a station (only the best are preconfigured), and the music starts playing right now.
The system is protected by a preconfigured Guarddog Firewall, (can be changed) so the user does not have to do anything but surf the web, send and receive E-Mail, and do FTP, with the firewall in place as the system boots.
I have the
I sure have tried to put a lot of things in this livecd linux, to give Windows users something they could use as an alternative OS, especially if Windows gets where it won't boot.
I can't imagine anybody wanting to do "online banking" with Windows. I have Opera set up to completely delete the entire home directory files when it exits, and I crash-proofed Opera, also. I prefer Opera when I work on web pages, and like for it to stay up and running while I get things done. Here's a sample. Opera and SciTE make it easy to create/maintain pages like that. Wonder how they do that in Windows?
At least you have to give us linux folks credit for trying to provide an alternative OS, anyway.
Rapidweather's Linux Screenshots.
wheras you, sir, are a vacuous tit
I could compare Windows with a brand new car driven by a person who just learned how to drive (a newbie). At the very first problem with the engine or the radiator, what is going the driver to do? Put a new radiator or engine in? What if they need not be replaced?
Many windows users prefer to reinstall the entire OS rather than fix the problem.
Or pay lots of money to have someone else fix it.
Linux indeed requires a lot of learning but in the final the user gains. I have moved from Windows to Debian GNU/Linux three years ago and it was tough. But I took it as a secondary mandatory school for myself and I am glad now that I did it.
Two years I sat on a CLI environment learning, learning , learning. Yes I could browse the net with a text browser. Yes I could create and edit files with vim editor. Yes I could have moments of fun with a text-based game. Yes I was able to participate to discussions on the IRC with a text-based irc client.
Life without a desktop is possible when one is determined to learn.
Now I do have a desktop, but sorry, no eyecandy icons or bars - that was the main issue that got me away from Windows. I use a Desktop Manager that opens up at a mouse click and holds all programs I need right there. No more bars, icons, clutter.
Linux is not so hard, is just totally different from the Windows environment.
Some people got "used to" Windows and I could find this a valid reason they won't want to move over. They just can't imagine a PC without icons and bars. For the disabled I guess is a perfect solution: no typing, just aim, click and drag. No need to read documentation either. No need to learn anything.
Just too bad for our future generations though: our kids are growing up lazy, when the basic writing, reading and math should be mandatory for them.
Movies, Gaming, Windows, and Sexology is the worse choice for them.
On a final note: a PC was never intended to be used as a jukebox, a movie player, a dishwasher, a toaster, or any other aberation Bill Gates dreamed of overnight.
I feel normal enough to use my own DVD player within my Home Theater System, that plays both, music and movies.
"Beware of what you wish" a good old saying that applies exactly well to the PC users as well.
Those of you who love Windows because of the multimedia: Stay with the Circus. Linux is not for you. Yes linux uses movie players and audio players. But in my opinion this is not about computing.
And this buillshit is coming from somene who professes to be using Gentoo.
Get a life or use somethnig that fits your requirements for ease of use such as Suse or Mandrake or, heaven forbid, Linspire.
I tried Linux a awhile back. Complexity wasn't the big issue for me. What killed linux for me was the incredibly lame software selection. Yeah, yeah, I know you linux freaks are always going on about how you can do anything in linux... The problem is that there's a lot of stuff you can't do very well. For example: Photo editing. The Gimp doesn't even come close to touching Photoshop. The thing is, the big, high-end, professional-grade software like that just doesn't exist for linux yet. Sure, you can use emulators, but they rarely work reliably enough for somebody other than a hobbyist. Fully functioning drivers are still a problem, due at least in part to certain details of the GNU licensing (I believe one linux distribution is currently in trouble for packaging closed-source drivers on it's disk...) Then you have entertainment... There are, presumably, still codec issues (as most codecs are made for the PC), and you can't run 99% of all the games that come out - not a big deal for businesses, but a killer for a great many home users. It's funny, but people on all sides of the OS issue always seem to forget that the OS isn't nearly as important as the software that runs on it. Doesn't matter if one OS is 1000 times better than the other one, if you can't run the programs you want on it. Linux is definately getting much, much closer to the point where I'll be willing to switch - maybe in five years, at the rate things are developing.
The biggest problem with Linux is its target market. Some people want Joe Q. Random to pick up Linux and fight the power, but the people who are actually using it right now want it to be more geeky and tweakable.
The landscape is different with Windows, as the perceived complexity of troubleshooting Windows exists partly to support the billion dollar tech support industry. I mean seriously, if your PC was entirely self-managed and did its own seamless driver updates, virus-proofing and maintenance, a lot of those gouging nerds on wheels would have to find a REAL job. If we make Linux so easy and idiot-proof that it just works out of the box, and keeps working without divine intervention, the very geek gods who make Linux possible would probably grow tired of the idiot-proofing legwork that separates them from what they love: hacking bleeding-edge features.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
It looks like you bought one of those huge widescreen monitors instead of a mouse with buttons and then adapted your habits to your hardware. Using a browser maximized is usually the easiest way to get the information on the screen. If you usually have lots of desktop hanging out, you either have a huge monitor, or you've taught your daughter how to use a cramped window.
Great! All of the files that she wants to drag and drop are going to end up in a big pile on the desktop.
If your solution is just to use the OSX's file manager to organize them, how is that possibly easier than puttting it there in the first place with a context menu? Oh, wait, I forgot. Your mouse doesn't have any buttons, so a context menu is always an inconvenient two-hand manuver. Guess what! You, human, have just adapted to the OS and its hardware conventions.
The one showstopper is non-portable applications which won't run under WINE. Thankfully, the most daunting one of these at one of my largest customers' offices has just been converted from a cobbled-together MS-SQL-based Win32 app into carefully-designed PostgreSQL+PHP-on-Apache, so the client software has almost stopped mattering, all of a sudden. So have scores of odd little bugs carefully retained by MS-SQL and the MS database libraries.
The new version of the app took something like 5%-10% of the time to recreate webbified and PostgreSQLed as the original took to port to MS-SQL (from MS-Access, probably) and to make it viably multi-userish. On top of this, it can now "instantly" be installed anywhere, on almost an server (since all of the server components are now quite portable; it's one CD and two minutes to add it to Linux now), so the developer is quite happy with the outcome long-term as well as short-term.
I can also easily give them a secure and external web interface, so Director can clock on and use the system from Bali or Thailand or Europe (examples not quite chosen at random) quite securely -- from his own laptop, not running 'doze at the time.
Adding the application to other customer sites just became amazingly easy, so it looks like everyone here is making money and getting good service from the rewrite, except for the alien per-seat [literally] virus-infested appliance-hawkers.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Also aggrivating is the names of those darn things...
... where's the icon for that?"
Linux Dude: "Oh Mr Joe... just run alsaconf, that'll fix your problem"
Mr Joe: "Ally Whatnow?"
LD: "alsaconf... lower case mind, as it is case sensitive... just run that, you'll be right"
MJ: "How do I run that? I don't find it here
MJ: "Oh, and I want to be able to burn CDs like I used to. I used to just use Media Player to do that, what do I use now?"
LD: "k3b will do it"
MJ: "What the hell is k3b? WHaaaaa?"
The names are ridiculous, the ways of doing things are arcane, the whole thing just doesn't gell... Every few months I install another distro on a work PC here and tinker, and every few months I'm glad I'm still using Windows... I'm sorry but it's just infuriating to have to keep dropping to command line to fix things and remember commands again... I left all that behind with DOS, I don't want to have to remember commands... I want a desktop that when I can't remember how to do something or other I just click my way through logical areas to get to what I need... Sound isn't working... go to Start->Settings->Control Panel->Sounds and Audio Devices... if it says there's an issue, click on the 'Hardware' Tab right in there... it's all logical... I don't need to remember that the comman is alsaconf for crap's sake.
Urgh Linux gives me the the irits.
Crossing the Chasm argues that all th eliterature about marketing innovative products is wrong.
...
Most marketing books will tell you there's a smooth bell curve from pioneers through early adopters to early majority, with takeup rates peaking thereafter and declining through late majority and holdouts.
CtC argues, with examples, that there's a full stop between early adopters and early majority types. They're just not similar people and they don't always talk to each other.
They recommend putting all the wood behind one arrowhead and targeting one tiny miche in the early majority world. An example would be Apple and desktop publishing. First they got it into the art department, which talked to the publicationns department, which
Dunno how or whether this applies to Linux. The strength of Linux is that the "marketing department" doesn't have the same constraints as a startup. And it's already got a niche, in servers.
See Tomahawk Desktop (http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/) if you need a Linux desktop for multimedia. It supports iPods, MP3, HD video, wide-screen flat panels, etc etc. Worth trying.
Try Tomahawk Desktop (http://www.tomahawkcomputers.com/). That's what you are looking for.
No need to edit any files, install any driver, etc. Its good if you have a modern computer.
Many programs don't run properly after you move them, or copy themselves back into their original location. After many programs started showing up in two places rather than one, leading to a much more cluttered window rather than less, I gave up on it and now I just have a mish-mash.
I would love to find out I've been doing something idiotic and there's a simple solution, but I don't really understand how I could be screwing up the process of creating a folder called 'Media' and dragging my media players into it.
It's true, anyone can switch from Windows to Linux, I know an 11 year old who has done it. I have used Linux for 5 years and have helped 112 people/businesses switch from Windows to Linux and only one of them has gone back to Windows. Yes, some learning is involved but it can be done depending on how much time you are willing to invest, most of the people I switched were comfy in about a week or two. PCLinuxOS is one of the best distros for Linux newbies, hardly any learning needed as everything just works out of the box. I'd recommend Ubuntu after that. Switching from a Cessna to a fighter jet requires a bit more learning too, but look at what you gain.
Linus is indeed ready for the desktop. If you're not willing to take the time to learn Linux, then you aren't ready for Linux.
I think automatically would be sufficient.
The rule of thumb is easy.
... geeks) and they want to save the money. And that gets the industry building up decent support. That is what is starting now.
First the geeks - they know how to set up their own systems. That's been done.
Then government and big corporations - they have specialist IT guys (yeah
Then the home user and small business last, where Joe Enduser is the sysadmin / newbie user / owner. For this, you need switch-on-and -run stuff. That is still down the track for most - they will sooner use a Mac, especially now that it can dual boot - maybe even soon do virtualisation like VMWare, etc.
Linux for the desktop isn't currently Linux for home and small business, it is Linux for the big org with the IT guys. Thousands of desktops in one roll-out. Restricted applications (do you want your office staff running Flash, or DVD players??)
I am anarch of all I survey.
Someone needs to lock this at 1337 comments. SO CLOSE!
Ditching Windows means ditching a lot of great software that only runs on Windows.
...and the huge, huge, huge disadvantage of Windows. Maybe if someone explained to this guy that using Windows makes all of his private business (anything stored on the Windows-managed drive) a part of the public domain and available to some members of every group within Microsoft, he would begin to understand that spending the few hours required to learn Linux is well worth safeguarding his livelihood. Nobody is saying every member of the MS team is looking over your shoulder, but if someone wants to know your professional business, they hire someone from Microsoft to inquire about the details.
I don't see how not paying for a product developed by someone else is a lack of freedom.
How about freedom from unintuative, time-consuming configuration files and install processes?
paintball
I've been cured of many time-wasting addictions.
Now I just need an OS that can't support Slashdot.
Didn't read TFA. But I'm not surprised by the fact that a nongeek has issues with installing Linux. I put my mother on Linux about six months ago because of didn't enjoy doing virus cleanups every sunday dinner and still getting phone calls during the week about strange dialog boxes.
Now, there is no way on earth my mother could install Linux, in this case Ubuntu which is probably the simplest distro out there, by herself. There is also no way on earth she could install Windows by herself. But <i>using</i> Linux is no problem at all for her. I've got her setup with OpenOffice, Kmail and Firefox and she's doing just fine. Mind you, this is a person who has a hard time separating the concepts "cassette" and "diskette".
Linux will get into the home when the default preinstalled OS on a box you get at Walmart is Linux. And that won't happen any time soon. Yes, I know that you can <i>already</i> get a Linux box at Walmart, but I don't think they're actually moving that many. And 90% of those who buy them probably install a pirated MS OS anyway.
The first desktop Linux will hit in a major way won't be the home desktop but the corporate. Companies with hundreds of desktops and an IT-department that looks after them are the folks who can really benefit by moving to Linux. They can save on licences and administration, get more performance out of their hardware and improve security. They put together their own boxes and save on MS tax. If they need to add functionality to some application it will be a lot cheaper than if they did it under MS.
We're going to see a lot more of Linux at work in the near future. Then in, ten years or so, things will start to happen at home.
http://flosspick.org finding the right open sour
The problem with everyone saying windows is easier than linux is based on the fact that windows comes already installed on their computer. If you buy a computer in pieces and try to install linux and windows on that machine, it's going to be hit and miss determining which one is simpler. Generally, you have to go through about 5 or 6 cds when installing windows.
Buy a computer preinstalled with linux and then try installing windows on that, and see how far you get.
then we can have a real comparison
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
linux still has usability issues against windows. But the problems there are usually social or legal, rather than technical (ie, multimedia support, hardware support, proprietry drivers)
Most of these issues are easily resolved with a bit of work (EasyUbuntu makes installing quasi-legal software simple, hardware support is solved by only buying hardware with good linux support)
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
Every Linux distribution must have a Live CD/DVD.
Every Live CD/DVD must have large INSTALL button in upper right corner all the time running.
If the sound and graphics are working properly in Preview DVD (or Live CD) they must work after installation too (after pressing INSTALL button).
If they don't work just insert another distro in DVD.
those who can, use linux
those who can't, use windows
those who want both, use mac.
in an ideal world the interface would be a personal choice and the OS would be the same. what's the point in trying to sell one over the other now? just go with what feels right and works. only you can decide. ignore everything else, noone knows what they're talking about.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
...early in 2005 to migrate to unix on a five-year old PC sitting in our guest room. I got two distros up and running successfully (Suse 9.x and Mandrake 9.x), and had a perfectly functioning machine....to a point.
No matter what I tried, this machine would not connect to the Internet wirelessly. I tried my local Unix UG, I bartered with Unix geeks at work, I even paid a nominal fee for a driver from an online source...all no joy. I ran a CAT 5 cable from my router to the room, and both distros were online immediately. Not surprisingly, my S/O was opposed to the idea of a an Ethernet cord running through the middle of the house.
No matter what I tried, this machine would not drive the scanner/printer sitting next to it.
If it won't connect to the Internet and won't PRINT, it's utility drops rapidly.
Finally: with both distros, I never had any actual success adding software that wasn't part of the initial bundle. And I won't discuss the distro that eventually had a corrupted boot loader and the three days that took to unscrew.
I'm probably slightly above average ordinary Windows user: I've got several home built machines and have worked in Unix enviroments (in a highly supported, very locked down sort of way) at work for years.
If either of these distros had run an 802.11g wireless adapter and a $100 HP printer/scanner, they'd still be running on that machine today.
There were no components of my own competence in play here, but when all was said and done...it was too hard for this Windows user.
I have 4 kids 5 and under, and my wife is pregnant with our 5th child.
:)
I suppose that it's *technically* possible that I'm celibate and that she's involved in infidelity. However, I'm definitely not celibate, and the repeated pregancies should provide ample evidence that I'm having intercourse on a regular basis. I guess you'll have to take my word for that, though.
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
+2, funny and insightful!
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're an idiot.
iPod: I hook my roommate's up to my Ubuntu box three times a week. I installed one piece of software, and have never once had an issue. Never. Ever. Once.
Video drivers: My 3d acceleration seems to work quite nicely. Installing the driver took about five minutes. I don't even know what the fuck you're talking about.
I could go on and on, but I won't. You're wrong.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Right here. I may be a little more technically inclined than the average bear, but really, I use my computer to surf the web, do my bills, download porn, and play Nethack. And I do it with Linux, and this shit ain't hard. My kid sister comes over and uses my computer all the time. This shit ain't hard.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
One reason I go by the moniker "anomaly" :)
But Herr Heisenberg, how does the electron know when I'm looking?
His problem was the Sony Vaio, not Linux. But I guess it's all a matter of perspective. If he'd bought a laptop with Linux pre-installed (I mean, he bought one with Windows pre-installed, didn't he?) I'm sure his review would have been much better.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
For a true Linux beginner, I'd reccommend PCLinuxOS. http://www.pclinuxos.com/
Good luck, and have phun!
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Playing around on tha computer is just like riding a bike..... U dont just fall off tha bike and never ride again. Well, tha same for Linux and Windows, U cant just go from Windows to Linux and exspect a smooth ride. U got to get back up and ride again. :)
I grew up with my fathers XT, my brothers old Timex Sinclair 1000, his new Atari 800, friends having Commodores, trash 80's, coco's, Amiga's, and even Apples. So I have switched several times. There is always learning curves in the switches, and there is always problems with getting things to work. Even Windows have compatibility issues. Time, knocks those out for him, not an argument.
But for me, the argument seems to boil down to how computer literate the users, already are. IMHO, the less literate, the more people rely on Proprietary formats. How many users email wmv/wma attachments to their friends (let's not get into security here). By default, people don't want to be sued, so those non open formats, cause troubles with distributing and running programs, for what seems the average user. If it weren't for that, I could change my mom's PC to Linux. As is, I would have to change all here friends, reteach them, and then try to replace some propritary programs, that some are required to use.
Linux is not for everybody, it IS all about choice. Some people choose not to choose, they want to blindly follow, so they can concentrate on other things.
I choose Linux, I like control.
I'm guessing very few. Most of us would take our car to a mechanic if it were to break because we don't have the specialized knowledge set to diagnose and fix it. Mechanics always talk about the stupid easily fixable things people bring in their cars for.
You know something - you are right. There are few geeks who can understand their cars. However, I find the attitude that you shouldn't have to understand it appalling when coming from another geek. Why? Because ultimately, that geek is saying he is only willing to understand one system, but not another. That he doesn't care about all processes, only some.
These geeks are self-limiting thier knowledge base - because to understand many systems is to understand commonalities among those systems. It is to understand comparitive strengths and weakness. Finally, knowing these things one can better understand how to recognize the strengths of separate systems, and how to apply those strengths to other systems to improve and correct the failings of those other systems.
By not trying to understand automobiles or any other system as inately as they understand computer systems, they are doing themselves (and thier work and knowledge) a grave disservice.
Finally, for the record, while I don't know (off the top of my head) the compression ratios of the engines in the vehicles I take care of, I do know how to test them, as well as just about everything else on your list. Honestly, a basic automobile is a very simple system to understand. For a geek not to understand one (not to mention not wanting to understand one) seems completely non-geeky. Alas, I have known many otherwise regular computer geeks who do not, and don't want to...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
How fuck is that flamebait when it's the truth? If you can't use Linux, then you're obviously too fucking stupid too even exist let alone use a computer.
Linux Rulez
Window$ Droolz!
The Contrarian Troll. A sophisticated breed, Contrarian Trolls frequent boards whose predominant opinions are contrary to their own. A forum dominated by those who support firearms and knife rights, for example, will invariably be visited by Contrarian Trolls espousing their beliefs in the benefits of gun control. It is important to distinguish between dissenters and actual Contrarian Trolls, however; the Contrarian is not categorized as a troll because of his or her dissenting opinions, but due to the manner in which he or she behaves:
s sage?board.id=offtopic&message.id=12985&view=by_da te_ascending&page=1%7C
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number One: The most important indicator of a poster's Contrarian Troll status is his constant use of subtle and not-so-subtle insults, a technique intended to make people angry. Contrarians will resist the urge to be insulting at first, but as their post count increases, they become more and more abusive of those with whom they disagree. Most often they initiate the insults in the course of what has been a civil, if heated, debate to that point.
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number Two: Constant references to the forum membership as monolithic. "You guys are all just [descriptor]." "You're a lynch mob." "You all just want to ridicule anyone who disagrees with you."
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number Three: Intellectual dishonesty. This is only a mild indicator that is not limited to trolls, but Contrarians display it to a high degree. They will lie about things they've said, pull posts out of context in a manner that changes their meanings significantly, and generally ignore any points for which they have no ready answers.
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number Four: Accusing the accusers. When confronted with their trolling, trolls immediately respond that it is the accusers who are trolls (see Natural Predators below). Often the Contrarian will single out his most vocal opponent and claim that while he can respect his other opponents, this one in particular is beneath his notice.
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number Five: Attempts to condescend. Pursued by Troll Bashers (see Natural Predators below), the Contrarian will seek refuge in condescending remarks that repeatedly scorn his or her critics as beneath notice - all the while continuing to respond to them.
- Contrarian Warning Sign Number Six: One distinctive mark of Contrarian Trolls is that every thread in which they dissent quickly devolves into a debate about who is trolling whom. In the course of such a debate the Contrarian will display many of the other Warning Signs mentioned above.
http://mxoboards.station.sony.com/matrix/board/me
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
people will only accept an OS if it's pre-installed and all the "work" has been done for them
I've tried using OO. But at work, when you have 75+ page MS Project report with embedded excel in it, you CAN'T use OO.
Brighten up, OO is 3-5 year away from being fully compatible with MS Office.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea