Slashdot Mirror
Why the World Is Not Ready For Linux
eldavojohn writes "While many users reading Slashdot embrace Linux, ZDNet is running an article on why the rest of the world isn't ready. One note for Linux developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert.' While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Vista could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option." From the article: "The one area of Linux ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty. Also, they usually only have the one PC to play with. Hardware just has to work. There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility — it's what people want."
I believe in people. Sometimes it is hard to, but for the most part I believe that people can be smart or become smart. They are just not given the oppurtunity to be. Companies like Microsoft usually don't try to allow people be smart, in fact its usually the case that these companies develop a business model based around people being ignorant and lazy. You can tell by how they word their agreements, marketing material and by what they leave out.
The unix way (besides do one thing and do it well) however is to allow beginners and experts in, and help them leverage themselves so that they can be intelligent and productive in how they work. I don't care if everyone adopts Linux, but I do care if the people who want to work intelligently and are willing to be intelligent are shut out of it. I encounter people all the time who want to learn Linux for the sake of learning it. These are open minded people who want to be smart. Maybe they are smart, maybe they aren't. But honestly that doesn't matter, if they have the will, then Linux will probably work fine for them.
This comment is not meant to "save the world" or anything so grandious. It is only meant as a retort to jackass e-zine writers who don't have the desire to give it a try and have no faith in the concept of community.
I've been installing, troubleshooting, setting up Linux boxes since the days of the 75+ floppy disk installs. Back then it was fun, how cool to get a FREE version of Unix on my PC!
I have probably installed hundreds of Linuxes. In the beginning it was cool, it was fun, and the end result was always worth the effort. Today, while a fully functional Linux box is almost always worth the effort, the blood, sweat, and tears of an install-troubleshoot doesn't come as easily. I've found other Linux "experts" who agree... it's time Linux works out of the box.
That said, I might disagree a bit with the thesis Linux doesn't work out of the box... I've found especially with distros like Ubuntu Linux has come far to "just working". As I've posted before, on a raw machine I've actually had better installation success with a cold install of Linux over XP.
But the main point is valid, and I think it extends to the Linux experts. Not only is troubleshooting geek-cool only to geeks, it doesn't bring warm fuzzies to people for whom you introduce to Linux. There's nothing more scary to the general users than seeing gibberish bootup messages complaining about missing or incompatible drivers and hardware when what they want to see is a shiny new GUI with applications they can use right away.
Linux experts can and still do slough through the pain of perfect Linux installs but the rest of the world isn't impressed. Give them something they can use that works well with everything else. Ultimately it looks like Linux is getting there and may even have a chance of becoming a major desktop... I'm not as pessimistic as the article seems to be.
In the meantime, good points from the article to win favor for Linux and its future:
Linux won't miss most of that world.
I love it.
http://slashdot.org/~hullabalucination/journal/142 227
* * * * *
A man's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another drink.
--W.C. Fields
Microsoft Windows requires drivers for many things that work right out of the box under linux. Yes, cheapo peripherals with design and windows only drivers outsourced to morons doesn't work too well. So what, nobody (including users of proprietry OS's) should be running closed source drivers anyway!
Suppose we should expect lots of bullshit as the vista PR machine grinds into action.
To a certain extent, I don't care if Linux is warm and fuzzy or not. It's not currently that difficult to set up a Linux system on most hardware. Even compiling and installing a driver or two isn't rocket science. Most distros have helpful communities ready to give new users a hand with their troubleshooting. Is all that work that most people want to do? Hardly. But maybe its better if people have to really want it before they get involved with Linux.
Until Linux is pre-installed, it won't matter to the majority of home users.
That's because the majority of home users do NOT upgrade their OS. They use whatever was installed by the OEM. They use the drivers provided by the OEM. They won't even install and update anti-virus software.
This is one of the basic things...Please don't tell me linux distro developers didn't know this. Then the question on why it so even if they knew is intriguing!
your average person doesn't give a rat's behind what all goes in to letting them check their myspace.. they just want to know that it will work-- apple and microsoft are succeeding as businesses because at some point they realized that there's more to selling computers and software than making the best thing out there. people want to feel good about it.
Home, I mostly about gaming and what not,(cygwin for work-at-home) Linux is out.
At work, productivity is key. While issued at wintel laptop, I usually use one of the dev aix servers for most of my real work.
Uh, there's a very good reason Microsoft doesn't have to spend a lot of time on hardware compatibility - they used anticompetitive products to gain a virtual monopoly and now the hardware vendors worry about supporting Windows.
And just to put this idea of "a lot of time" into perspective, just how much time do you think the open source community has spent on developing, testing, and debugging hardware drivers for Linux? Many of those drivers build on work done in other operating systems, or for other products, so where the drivers do not share common backgrounds you have to add in all the time for that work, too.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
This article shares the idea that many people have about Linux running games and various other pieces of software.
It states that if you're a gamer, you'll NEED to dual boot.
I'm a gamer, and I use Wine to run all my Win32 games. The very latest ones aren't perfect (yet), but for the most part you can run anything. As for other software - you really can nearly run anything perfectly.
When I say not perfect YET, it needs to be stressed that Wine is progressing really really fast, with more and more things working all the time.
If Microsoft puts so much effort into hardware compatibility, then why do my nice new HP scanner and laser printer work well with Linux, but not at all in XP Pro? HP's official story is "we can't get drivers to work on the 64 bit version of XP". Linux uses the same drivers for 32 bit and 64, just re-compiled, and they work with an out-of-the-box install of Fedora Core 6.
That doesn't look like "just works" to me.
On the plus side, this means that my parents now use Linux pretty much exclusively, because that's where the printer works.
I know that because my mom has no problem using debian on Nokia 770, I have no problem using Ubuntu on home desktop, my friend has no problem using Fedora on his web server, millions of "Joe" has no problem running Linux on phone or pda
"Steve Jobs invented the world" -- Bill W. GATES
"While many users reading Slashdot embrace Windows, ZDNet is running an article on why the rest of the world isn't ready. One note for Windows developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Windows (or who wants to use Windows) is a Windows expert.' While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Fedora Core 6 could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option."
If you are a Windows user (like the author of TFA), then you will be pissed off by Linux because you aren't as productive immediately (because, *gasp*, it's different).
If you are a Linux user (like me), then you will be pissed of by Windows because you aren't as productive immediately (because, *gasp*, it's different).
It's the same old story that's been told a thousand times before. Come on, it's not a slow news day. Hell just froze over.
What someone needs to do is come out with a brand of Linux, but leave the word "LINUX" completely out of any literature (or, at least, as much as you legally can). In the non-tech world, the word "LINUX" is synonymous to "must have advanced technological knowledge of computers and operating systems". Therefore, everyday computer users are scared-off when they see anything that says "LINUX" even if it may be easier to use, easier to maintain, and better than the alternatives in a lot of cases.
Absolutely. Bad hardware support is entirely because the people writing code for Linux don't think they should bother with device drivers. It has nothing at all to do with the fact that hardware manufacturers won't give up enough information to do it correctly.
Yup, just a bunch of 1337 haxx05z who don't want the unwashed masses using their toy.
Nope, no sig
"While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Vista could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option."
Mac?
For me, a better question than "why use Linux when you could use Vista?" or "why use Vista when you could use Linux" is "why would you ever use anything besides a Mac?"
I think ultimately that statement shows off a large part of the problem.
It shouldn't be that the world isn't ready for linux, rather linux isn't ready for the world!
Stop trying to convince all and sundry that linux is better than windows, put that effort into actually making it better! I'm not saying linux is useless, far from it, but it's still not ready for mass-market consumption.
I love the tirades in it about "just work" and "Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty"... Yeah, like Microsoft products eliminate all that.
I make a huge amount of money on the side because of things in Windows that has lots of uncertainty and that they don't work. Example from today.... Customer calls in a panic, they uninstalled Roxio myDVD and now they are missing all their dvd drives in their computer, they dont show up, reboots dont help. I had to manually edit their registry and then reinstall their other software to get it to work again. Simply uninstalling an app should not do this, granted it's roxio's fault for writing crappy software. How about spyware that needs 2 hours of manual prying to get it removed? how about installing the latest high end soundcard only to find it does not work because it is conflicting with the built in sound?
Almost every point in the article about linux I can point to in Microsoft..
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Vista will be bloated and slow, and there is still no other option.
given that it is trying to state reasons why the average user can't use Linux, and the problems are thigns that can be more easily changed in Linux (and I believe, will be changed; allthough not all the way there, Ubuntu is a good example of the cutting edge of the trend). So, shouldn't it be "Why Linux is not yet read for the world"? The way it's progressed, I give Linux 5 to 10 years, unless people decide to migrate to BSD (yeah right)
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
Fedora had no problems detecting the hardware. So, after some googling we discovered that there were separate Windows drivers for the SATA drives that came with the motherboard. We had to create a floppy (!!!!) with the drivers that had to be inserted at a specific step during the windows install. Luckily my son insisted on getting a floppy drive, otherwise we would not be able to install windows.
Fedora Core 4 installed with no problems..
...richie - It is a good day to code.
The very first thing I learned at Microsoft is was the 80/20 rule. This is the thing that most Linux advocate will simply never understand. Many of us hate Windows because it is inferior, but we refuse to address the fact that for a HUGE majority of people, it is GOOD ENOUGH!
Instead of taking that premise and working from it, we just call Windows advocates stupid, lazy bums who just dont get it. Yeah, that's how you build a movement, just insult all the people you care to influence.
This thread will surely join the other thousand or so in calling Windows users idiots in the same league as those still on AOL (ouch!), while the majority of those users just fire up their favorite business app or game that just WORKS without having to recomplile anything.
Someday, for Linux to succeed, we are going to have to come to grips with the idea that NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO BE A GEEK. They want their computer to work like an appliance. They dont want to interact with it, they just want to USE it. If we ever GET that, Linux will make inroads. I aint holding my breath. Flame away, I got karma to burn!
So that explains why I had to hunt around for the drivers for my on-board Lan and Sound on my last Windows install. Without a network. Have you tried getting 64-bit Windows drivers for a Canon Scanner these days? It's a case of "do ya feel lucky, punk?".
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Main problem with Linux is approach of Linux developers. I understand that they don't want any external, precompiled software with their free product. But that stops Linux from almost everything. Linux should be a OS, platform that runs computer. Nobody should be scared of installing anything that is precompiled (as long as it comes from legitimate source). Right now Linux doesn't have proper drivers, flash player was just added, and there're more things missing.
Tell me, why? What's the problem in playing game that comes precomplied on CD? Don't you think it's much easier for Joe Average to just click 'Install' and play it?
And think what would happen if we finally aggreded for that? Joe installs the game. He notices that it's much faster than on Windows. Joe loves Linux (because 'my computer is so much faster!!!').
That's the way to make way for Linux. Average users. More users in Linux world means more of them transforming into Linux developers. And more support from big companies. And more people to evangelize about it. More people realizing that there's something more than Windows XP.
Only way to make Linux win that 'war' is to unite and CHANGE. And to change not users, change ourselves.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
That about sums up why i haven't switched to linux yet.
I tried ubuntu and two other variations that were supposed to be easy too but in the end i dont have the time to learn it all.
There used to be a time where i enjoyed spending hours just playing around with something, not being afraid to mess it up but that's not the case anymore.
I got a day job where we use windows then i come back home where i spend time with my girlfriend, i game a little and do some "real" manual work like fixing the car or stop that leak in the bathroom.
and in the end, i dont have the energy to learn ubuntu (even if its easy). because learning it requires me to sit in front of the pc and browse the net and search, go on forums, ask questions, wait reply, try something....etc its time consuming.
granted its easier once you got the basics but getting those basics is time consuming and i guess that where the average joe (like me?) just wont switch even if i love open source and dont like MS too much for various reasons.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
Of course, they're right. And it's not for any crazy reasons like "the iPod don't work" like esr would have you believe. The key of course is getting developers to target their products toward users of course. We all know this is the problem. I think that these days if doesn't agree that Linux (pick your distro) isn't ready to go for people with no computing background is crazy. I see, however, a lot of "oh but people are just trained on Windows" - this is no excuse. It's possible to make software discoverable, it's just really HARD.
I'm starting to think that this is the major flaw of Open Source Software. It's not that people don't have a desire to bring FOSS to the masses, nor the ability to make it usable for Aunt Tilly, but more due to the fact that most end users are fucking bitches. It's not easy for a volunteer staff to put up with the bullshit that real users require - but if you don't deal with it, you can't complain. That's life - you put up with idiots using computers or you aren't competitive in that market. Until FOSS gets more backing by businesses or developers learn to focus on how their product behaves, you aren't going to get anywhere.
Personally, I think the first thing that needs to happen is for distros to get their act together. I don't know what would help - maybe drafting/implementing Linux distribution standards? - but installation is always the first step.
Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
Has the author actually tried installing XP on a new computer? (a Dell 'OEM reinstall' doesn't count)
..etc
You need to be MORE of a hardware expert to install XP on a computer then if you were to install Linux (especially Ubuntu). yes I know that XP is 5 years old and can't support 'NEW' equipment, but the author doesn't seem to care so I won't either.
Will Vista support more hardware out-of-the-box? yes of course.
Will linux support more hardware then Vista in 1+ years? yes of course.
If you install XP...
you need to know what chipset you are using.
you need to know what graphics card you have.
you need to make sure SP2 gets installed FIRST so that you can get USB2.0 to work.
This is needed just to get the computer to work at better-then-i386 settings.
Most linux installs *at default* give you MORE usability then XP ever has.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
The misconception is that the layperson actually goes through the process of installing an operating system, ever. Most people don't realize that a computer and the operating system are two different things. They buy it, and everything works. The key to Linux becoming mainstream is extremely simple yet very difficult. Get hardware vendors to ship computers with Linux preloaded and get these computers into the retail stores like Best Buy, CompUSA, etc. The other part to all this is making migration of a new OS easy on the layperson. This is the direction certain distros have been taking, Ubuntu being one of them. The last big thing... wireless drivers, wireless drivers, wireless drivers. People want laptops, people want to go wireless. Give the people what they want.
Similes are like metaphors
I think there are two questions here. How to make Linux attractive to power users, and businesses large enough to have an IT shop. And how to make Linus attractive to non-power users, and small businesses without reliable knowledgeable IT support. for the first group current Linux strategies are proving successful. However a majority of users are either in the second group, or are benefit from staying compatible with the second group. To make a historical analogy, automobiles were a niche market until around 1905 because users had to provide their own mechanical and fuel support. Most of us drive these days, and we respect those who can re-build a carburator. But we can't rebuild a carburator ourselves. If we want Linux to break out of its niche, then we have to stop requiring users to be able to re-build carburators. Or we can keep it as a private possession and allow the rest of the world to keep walking.
I left Windows because I was tired of always having to fix something or other every other weekend. Either my girlfriend's computer would have a problem or mine would. I didn't want to fix computers all weekend - I wanted to have a life! So I ditched Windows and tried out this new thing called Linux that was supposed to be super-stable, no crashes, etc.
That worked OK, but all of a sudden buying new hardware became a monumental task. Will it work with Linux, or is it Windows-only? What hoops do I have to jump through? And when something *did* occasionally go wrong, it didn't usually mean spending a weekend fixing it. Usually, it meant spending a week fixing it.
That's why, when Mac OS X became stable (version 10.1), I took the plunge and bought a Mac. I haven't spent time worrying about or tinkering with my computer or my wife's computer since. Everything just works. I have my life back.
And I much prefer it this way.
I have to admit - I want to like Linux, and believe me I've tried. I am a pretty savvy computer user and have been trying out various distros for a few years. Installation is pretty much straightforward these days, most mainstream hardware is recognised out of the box. The problem with Linux is software! I shouldn't have to open a terminal, unpack a file, type some incomprehensible gobbledygook and then be told I don't have sufficient privelege or other similar obstacles to install or try out a piece of software. Equally, I shouldn't have to worry what distribution I'm using or different package manager concepts. For my part I would say that desktop Linux will never make it past the door until installing software is a double-click affair.
I've just recently installed Linux on my home system and really tried to figure out. And I've gotta say, the whole thing sucks. I've tried Fedora and Ubuntu. Fedora installed much easier than Ubuntu, although that's partially because Ubuntu was installed to replace Fedora. Fedora, however, had an option to automatically remove all Linux partitions and install there, while Ubuntu's only analog (and default even if there's plenty of unpartitioned space) is to delete the entire drive! Not something I'd want to do when I'm dual booting.
/dev/hdb1 when neccessary. I don't know what the -l in fdisk -l means. Hell, if it weren't for using it in DOS I wouldn't even know what fdisk was. I don't understand the commands that I used to grab the software from the internet.
From there, things just got worse. I spent a long time researching how to mount an NTFS partition in Fedora, finally found some good links for Ubuntu (hence the change). I managed to mount the NTFS partition and listen to the music stored thereon, but I really only had a vague idea of what I was doing. Some of the stuff was reasonably obvious. For example, the fstab file is obviously supposed to be default mountings when you boot up. However, the syntax used inside of it is all gibberish to me, as was most of the commands I used during the process of installing everything I needed for this project. I basically just copy-pasted everything, filling in specific information like
And every single tutorial is exactly the same. They either assume you know something, or they tell you what to do without explaining why you're doing it. It'd be nice if there were some tutorials that actually took the time to tell you, for example, "fdisk -l" invokes the fdisk program with the -l switch. Fdisk is used for viewing and editing partitions and the -l switch makes it (I assume) list the current partitions.
I installed Linux so that I could learn how to use it, but all I've learned is how many arcane commands with even more arcane syntaxes (syntaces) it has.
Keep in mind, also, that I'm the exception. I'm a Windows user with no practical interest in Linux, who's only doing it for the learning experience. I'm actually willing to go out and look stuff up, to some extent. As I said, though, Linux is just a curiosity to me. I'm not going to spend all day figuring out how to exit the "help" given by the man command (seriously, how do you exit it? Aside from closing the terminal, I mean? I know I can prest shift+zz because someone told me that, but how the hell would anyone ever guess that?).
Linux, even the best distributions, have a long, long, long way to go before they're anywhere near as usable as Windows.
While I agree that getting hardware to work under Linux is often harder than getting it work under Windows, there are a couple of popular misconceptions involved here.
One is that getting hardware to work on Windows is easy for the newbie user. This isn't true, either. There's a whole industry that makes its living getting hardware working for Windows (it's called "IT"). The reason Grandma Ethel doesn't encounter this issue so much is that she buys a working system and never uses it for anything but email and web browsing. A pre-built, OEM integrated, turn-key Linux system would work just as well there.
The other misconception is that we can point the finger at Linux developers and say, "It's your fault". We also need to blame hardware manufactuers. If you buy a new widget from Conglomco Technologies, you'll find discs and manuals for Windows, but nothing for Linux. Call Conglomco and complain. If possible, also return the product, inform the reseller why also, and then tell Conglomco you bought a competitor's product because of their lack of Linux support.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
I used to be a gamer, but I got older. Now, like you, I sometimes play games.
Reduce, reuse, cycle
The hardware vendors do because they want to sell into that market. The problem with Linux is a lot of vendors don't care. If I go and build a new PC with all the latest hardware, Windows will be supported. Linux? Maybe. You'd lose a lot of hair trying to find all the drivers for it if they did exist.
The trouble with Linux is inconsistency that comes about from multiple disparate groups of developers. Everything in Windows behaves the same, and the vast majority of apps of applications follow the same UI trends.
Take a look at Linux though, and you have a vast array of different widgets that perform the same functions, and different dialog layouts (down to which way around the "OK" and "Cancel" buttons are presented). This inconsistancy is just plain annoying. It's annoying on Windows too, when apps try and do something different (stupidly big buttons, for example, like in HJSplit).
If all the applications looked the same and behaved the same, then your average user at home might be happier to use them. Familiarity is the way forward.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
And until something replaced Windows as the preloaded OS, Windows will continue to be the resident default value on the desktop. Period.
I've seen folks who can't even figure out how to use a browser. All they know is that they can click on links in their e-mail and bring up web pages that way, but they don't remember that a browser icon exists on their desktop. Seriously.
Those folks aren't changing *anything* on their PC as long as what they have works.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
The one area of Linux ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support.
How are we to take this article seriously with such awful writing? If I wrote "everyone who uses Linux is and expert is hardware support" in a paper for a grade I'd fail. I'm not sure everyone who uses the pretense of being a writer is an expert in use of the English language; I had assumed that people who are paid to write are held to a higher standard.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Here you go:
http://www.linuxfordummies.org/
Ejoy,
From the front lines...
I _just_ bought a new system last week after my three year old laptop all but cratered. When the laptop was new we tried Red Hat: it couldn't handle the power regulation and the fan would spin up to crazy speeds, and GRUB would kill the boot sector when we did any sort of drive configuration in Windows. It was a lost cause.
I decided to give Ubuntu a chance again with this new system. I got Windows pre-installed, but fired up the free boot disks Ubuntu mailed to me a few weeks previously. The kernel wouldn't boot from that version (6.06) on my hardware (duo core, 64 bit) and the online "solution" was to disable the USB support. Not.
A 600 MB download later of the 6.10 version, and yes it booted. Installed. Seemingly smoothly. But wait! The install didn't recognize onboard ethernet. (Back to the windows partition, and six reboots later it's working.) But wait, my $300 VPU is acting like a $20 video card because ATI is not well supported (apparently). I still don't have that figured out. SH errors and BASH errors trying to install the drivers.
So, four evenings later I've got a system that does about 80% of what I paid for. Will I use it? I haven't decided yet. And I'm an easy convert.
The most likely reason that the hardware situation is better on Windows is because MS got its OS dominance by tight relationships to the major hardware supplier (and extended it by building similar relationships with other hardware suppliers) back in the DOS era, then once its dominance was established, hardware vendors had a strong incentive to make their systems work with Microsoft's main operating system of the time (DOS, then Windows.)
Linux is always going to be at something of a disadvantage there as long as hardware vendors aren't attached enough to it to provide just-works, out-of-the-box functionality, community efforts are likely to always lag behind—they may eventually be better, but they won't be ready when the product is brand new, and by the time they are up to speed, the product may be replaced.
What might help in Linux—and seems increasingly plausible now with the wide array of quality application software available covering many of the most important uses—is if a consumer-oriented hardware vendor decided to adopt Linux as the OS for a complete consumer-oriented computer solution, taking the time to do get the hardware support for the core configuration down. If they could get these out at a budget price with an attractive software and hardware set for the budget market, they might get enough of installed user base that it would provide third-party hardware vendors enough of an incentive to make Linux support a priority.
(If it doesn't happen from someone else sooner, this could be a long-term side-effect of the OLPC project if it is successful.)
I'm a big linux fan. I think it makes for a great server system and a great development/geek system. However, I would be reluctant to run it as my primary laptop OS. I wouldn't run Vista either.
If Linux wants to be more widely adopted what it needs is not more hardware support but to be more like OS X. Namely it's complex UNIX guts should be accessible but hidden. The user should be presented with a consistent, pretty user interface with all the bells and whistles without being lured into dealing with any complex configurations.
KDE and Gnome projects have done some great work here but the underlying problem is X. The old difficult to accelerate architecture of X really needs to be replaced with a whole new drawing/rendering model. Quartz is a good example but I'm sure the smart people who do this sort of thing could come up with something even better if their was the will to totally jettison X and start over.
Until something like that happens I'm using linux for my server boxes but my main machine will remain a laptop running OS X and if I need a PC for general web browsing and things that would be OS X as well.
If you liked this thought maybe you would find my blog nice too:
All kudos to Ubuntu for their work on making stuff eminently usable, even for complete dumbasses.
But this idea that EVERYBODY needs to be on Linux NEEDS TO FUCKING DIE!
There's always going to be a group of people who just will NEVER be prepared for Linux REGARDLESS of what you do! These are usually the same class of users who break something in their Win/Mac box with a generally hourly frequency.
As to the group of people who have "neither the time nor the inclination", I can only say FUCKING LEARN!
You don't drive a car without some education about how it works. Granted, driving could be used as an analogy to the UI. But those who change their oil every 30,000 (yes thirty thousand) miles, don't put air in the tires until they're running on rims, don't change the tires at about the same frequency, and generally treat the vehicle like a mobile battering ram and take it on the EXACT straightest course between two points (regardless of terrain, obstructions, etc), don't have a car for very long. In the same way people who beat the living fuck out of their OS don't have a usable system very long.
Nowadays, in most modern, first-world countries, some basic education about computers (more than just "This is Windows. This is Office."). This way, if someone asks a trivial hardware question, they're not greeted with a stunned-cow look and a long, drawn-out "duh-uh?".
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
The autor of the article makes the assumption that Windows has the better hardware compatibility than GNU/Linux. This is, however, not the case. It may be the case if Windows comes pre-installed with the machine. But on a fresh install, Windows creates a lot more trouble than GNU/Linux. I just recently installed both Windows and Linux on a new machine. It took me about 45 minutes to install Ubuntu (Dapper Drake). It took almost six hours to install Windows. Why? Because I had to download and install about 20 applications and drivers, just to use Windows (Don't mention the Windows patches). I didn't have to install any external drivers for Ubuntu. Later I wanted to use my IPod on said computer. I didn't work out-of-the-box for Windows (I had to install iTunes). It did, however, for Linux (Through Rythmbox).
I don't think that hardware compatibility is realy a problem for the adoption of GNU/Linux. A fresh install Linux installation is easier to do than a fresh Windows installation. GNU/Linux however lacks what I call "Power-User-Support". Almost everyone using a Windows machine "knows" someone to install and maintain his machine. This is not true for Linux. If computers came with pre-installed Linux, the users wouldn't know who to ask. And if the first computer "expert" they call doesn't know Linux, it will be overwritten as fast as you can say "We'll just pirate this corporate Windows CD."
Linux needs more of those self-educated, self-proclaimed "Power Users". The gray masses of computer users who know about the Windows registry, program their Visual Basic scrips and provide computer support for the whole neighbourhood. If we can convince this people to use Linux, they in turn will convert their neighbourhood. It's so easy...
The author is vaguely correct, so it sounds good and very comforting.
The most compelling reason why users will switch is because Linux/BSD desktop will have an application that this guy needs.
At the end of the article the writer claims he'll set up a linux file server. Which is what this guy needs and MS won't give you one when you purchase a desktop from them. (please don't split hairs with me on this one. XP is not a file server.)
As all linux users know, it will install easily, he'll figure out the way things work in the distro of his choice and it will be all good. Because it's linux, he'll start adding things to it and pretty soon it'll be doing other things really well. Meanwhile MS will be tightening the handcuffs on his new vista machine. And pretty soon Linux will be doing even more and the desktop will be even better.
Right now, Linux is working it's way through the enterprise pretty anonymously and media people get to say bad things about it because they can and most enterprises don't want the specter of IP litigation. The usefulness of Linux and the Vista handcuffs will drive many more users to it, the litigation bombs will drop and there will be too many people too invested in it to -not- go to battle.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi
Linux is somewhere between ingoring and laughing.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
Actually, I'm in the middle of doing a laptop for someone. The problem is the built in sound. The driver I need was pulled from the driver set 4 updates ago*. Right now I am having library conflicts trying to compile the driver from the old source code. Since I don't do drivers, or C, I am having a wee bit of a problem. Fortunately the owner is willing to wait - otherwise this would be back to Win95.
*at work now, but IIRC it's an ES-186* driver I need & the driver bundle only carries the ES-188* drivers. Doing a Ubuntu install & everything but the sound went smooth.
This is something which has always annoyed me. The idea that all hardware just works in Windows is utter nonsense, but something that Microsoft does all it can to perpetuate. For example:
When someone installs a new graphics card in a Windows machine, after a restart they are invariably presented with a basic VGA resolution, 256 colour display until they install whatever drivers come with the card. This seems perfectly acceptable, and in fact is. However, when someone either installs GNU/Linux on an existing machine, or installs a new graphics card in such a machine, they seem to think that it should just work. This seems to be the case for supposedly professional tech journalists as much as average end-users. The number of times I've read a review of a new GNU/Linux distribution that included something along the lines of "the wireless adapter in my laptop wasn't picked up and had to be installed manually" is just insane, they seem to forget that they had to install drivers for exactly the same card when they originally installed the hardware.
It's therefore strange that having to install drivers seems a cause for much alarm and complaint. Granted, the installation process in Windows will often be slicker and more suitable for non-technical users, you have to do pretty much the same thing no matter what OS you're running.
Something else to remember is that the people who develop hardware drivers for GNU/Linux are invariably the developers themselves. The people who develop hardware drivers for Windows are the invariably hardware manufacturers, not Microsoft. The difference in the amount of work required to achieve the same result is phenominal, which is why it's good to see that some hardware manuafacturers are now developing drivers themselves. It's just a shame that they often just release them via the Internet only and don't ship them on a CD with the Windows drivers that come with the hardware itself.
..isn't hardware support. Even n00bs can find a driver (sometimes!). The main problem is how arcane the entire file structure is, and how the menus don't behave properly. How Wine doesn't come pre-isntalled in most distros. How there are stupid little religious wars over gnome and kde, even though they both kinda suck. How different distros are addicted to random non-standard apps that aren't as cool as firefox. the default of not being root, and then having to logout and log back in and problems relating to this.... Not one decent native game (I'm picky!). No emulators. Winamp is still the best audio program, but that goes back to Wine not being preinstalled again. The ugly shit-brown of Ubuntu. Trying to figure out the Linux partition manager. Everything to do with gaming: Video drivers, audio drivers, etc.
But yeah, while you're fixing all that stuff including better hardware support would also be a plus I suppose.
Really the only advantage to Linux is philosophical at this point, and the fact that Redmond is a bunch of fuck ups who couldn't code their way out of a wet paper bag. And the fact that macs cost too much, and aren't really geared towards enthusiasts and gamers, who drive a significant portion of the market.
rhY
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Oh, suuure, the _world_ isn't ready... Suuuure, let's blame everyone else, riiiighttt...
Ok... So the world is not ready for not having software that just-works(tm)? It's not ready for no-games(tm)? It's not ready for hey-why-doesn't-my-printer-work(tm)? [/SARCASM]
No, wait, I think I get it now... Maybe, just maybe, linux is not suitable for their needs?...
Your average user is someone who buys a computer and only adds very basic things such as a monitor, speakers, digital camera, and printer. If I recall properly, all of those work well with Linux, or at least as good as with Windows. Your average user never opens the computer case. Hell, they probably don't know how because they've never tried before.
Set up a stable system with Linux preloaded and people will treat it just as they would any other computer: keep on adding shit to it that runs in the background until it bogs down, then buy a new one.
We have two groups: the free software advocates and the pro-desktoplinux crowd. They are NOT the same. Here's why:
The free software advocates want everything to be opensource and 100% free. A fully functional desktoplinux with support for latest state-of-the-art hardware is of less to no concern for them. Their goal is a 100% free system with zero propietary components.
The desktoplinux crowd is much more pragmatic, and doesn't care if the graphics drivers are binary and propietary. Their goal is a competitor to Windows and reclaiming the desktop, ending the MS monopoly over it (which gives MS the power to establish their standards easily).
Both actually have similar goals: the former want a free system, the latter want a free desktop. But their goals are in conflict with each other.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
First, "there is no other option"... ummm, ever heard of MAC OS X? Personally I feel that is the best option for people who don't want to use windows but don't want to take the time to learn Linux.
As for driver compatibility etc... the only reason most windows PCs just work is because the Vendor they bought the PC from pre-loaded everything. I remember the last time I installed windows it couldn't find my network card so I had to go to another computer to download the network drivers, burn it to a cd so I could install it. Then I had to download and install the video drivers if I wanted any resolution above 800x600. Then I had to download and install Firefox, thunderbird, gaim, etc... and they weren't a simple 'apt-get install gaim firefox thunderbird' and then walk away.
Yes, installing an OS is inherently easier when all the drivers and programs you want are on the cd. This is true for both windows and linux. I've also found Linux to have more built in drivers. Also it comes with a lot of programs to get you up and running, MS just comes with an OS. If everyone had to install their own OS, there would be a lot of people just not using computers.
I'm just tired of this stupid argument that Linux isn't ready for the mainstream because people are too stupid to know how to install it. People are too stupid to know how to install windows too, that doesn't stop them from using it.
I'll have a worthy response to this as soon I'm done realigning my KDE desktop icons (because I just rebooted) and hitting the arrow keys to keep the screen from blanking. I'm almost to the magic number (whatever it is) of arrow key hits to keep it alive for the rest of the day.
I would never recommend Linux to someone without a technical background. Even with programs like yum and distros like Ubuntu, I still spend quite a bit of time worrying about compilers and kernel versions. I dont mind building one for a friend and letting them have it. But asking them to install it is asking for trouble.
As a new person to Linux, I am very excited about the stability once it is set up. But with a history in windows I can see the bloat and how easy it is to install and customize it to an average person without a technical background. Maybe driver support will fix this, maybe a longer lifespan on an OS will help.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Don't miss in less than a minute our juicy follow-up article "Top 10 reasons why GNU/Linux doesn't gives a shit" on some newly-created obscure blog that'll disappear tomorrow.
That's good to know that Linux may have somewhat better support for bleeding edge hardware. Unfortuantely for those of us who can't afford shiny new hardware, Linux is pretty much useless on anything that's more than a few years old. I've got about 10 PC's, all from thrift stores, or cast-offs. On all of them, there was some kind of show-stopper that kept Ubuntu from working. On all of them, I ended up going back to Windows 2000 (or XP). I DID get Ubuntu working once on one machine, but the performance was absolutely abyssmal and that machine went back to Windows, too.
I've never had a brand new bleeding edge PC (what the hell is a "SATA" drive?), so that's good info to know if I ever hit the lottery. Until then, Windows 2000 on my $25 thrift store machines works better than anything else.
A Linux brick. That's it. Just speak to it and it'll give you want you want. Powered by Ubuntu Speaks! (good dog... ;-)
... hmmm... ;-)
Seriously.
Until you have reduced the computer down to a simple brick with no peripherals Linux will never be completely "out of the box". Its one of those things where 80-90% is going to be all you get on out of the box is hardware capability.
Computer hardware (read peripherals) and software (read MS and games) are driven by the new. Linux is getting more market share but in the end corporations/markets look to their own. The day Linux becomes a viable gaming platform is the day most of this "Linux isn't ready" stupidity will go away. Until then Linux is what it is. It will do just about everything you want to do except for that 10%, whether that be the cheapest scanner or printer I could find, or the latest video card or cool new game, or proprietary interface (photo gallery or hell I dunno).
That 10%, that bleeding edge is a pretty nasty place to be anyways. I can't remember how many times my window boxen of old died on new drivers and incomplete games. For my money I'm glad I can't use those peripherals, they tend to suck anyway. (Dodged WinModems, thank you Linux developers!)
For the most part I think Linux is as good as its going to get until the computing industry and how people use computers changes. Whether that's all web based apps or hard/fast hardware specs like USB with a little more teeth to make the drivers easier to write or make drivers almost ubiquitous. Yeah, I know, I'm dreaming...
Going to a brick and mortar for the newest shiny baubble to install/load onto/into your system will always hedge to M$. Macintosh does ok but it's apples and
For me, I'm just happy that 90% of the time I can see web content. Not sure when we passed that benchmark but for that 10% I can't access most of it is because they've disallowed my OS/Browser combo as "NOT COMPATIBLE" where I could look at the content if they didn't lock me out. When did we pass that milestone?
Also when did pass that silly idea that Linux only copies, never innovates?
Linux is doing just fine if you ask me. The diehards just aren't quite ready to admit the world hath changed. I think this new draconian DRM thing is going to hurt,
Just my 0.02
"Don't fear death... fear not living..." -me
> Until Linux is pre-installed, it won't matter to the majority of home users.
I agree. Most users don't add much to a PC other than printers, scanners, or cameras. And when they do, and run into trouble, it's never a Windows thing. Windows can do no wrong for many users.
Even if I get frustrated installing audio hardware on a Windows box, it's not Window's fault. If it's been a linux box, the user would have just said "can't you just use Windows", but because it was Windows, they meekly accepted that you had to:
* specifically _not_ plug in the new hardware
* go to the website for drivers
* install the drivers
* reboot
* finally plug in the hardware
* hunt down where the installed driver was put and manually specify it
* reboot
In the end, they blamed the audio manufacturer (M-Audio) for the hassles!
So Windows can't lose. What it does right is its credit, when it causes trouble with installing-- it's the other manufacturer's fault.
If Linux had that kind of double standard, it'd be on everyone's desktop. So it's a pre-installed thing, a marketing thing, and a "most users don't run into trouble so they blame troubles elsewhere" thing.
A.
The reason hardware support in Windows is so good is because manufacturers are doing all the work. Linux support lags behind because manufacturers don't want to part with the specs on how to directly use the hardware. The only reason that I can think of that makes any sense for not wanting to give this information out is because they are fearful that somebody else will come along and build some hardware that is compatible with theirs and their profits would decrease.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
The world is not ready for Linux.
The world is ready for Open Source, Free Software and Computing Freedoms.
Once you understand this, it makes sense.
Thank you, that actually looks like a decent resource! :)
After having to constantly patch my moms system remotely every weekend for ever bug, viros, exploit, spyware and everything else, I installed Kubuntu on a spare box, shipped it on down there and hooked it up. It detected her Scaner, the digital camera my brother bought her, the speakers and everthing just fine. She now says it never crashes and is the best machine she has ever owned. Now every week, the phone call consists of her thanking me for 'fixing her computer'; she doesn't even know she's not running windows.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
It's not that I'm ignorant, certainly. I use Firefox, OpenOffice, Gaim, and other open-source software regularly. I've learned some Java, SQL, HTML, C++, and consider myself "computer savvy." But because I am not familiar with the language of the Linux OS (like the CHAR(3) names for the folders on the \ or the keywords for taking advantage of the terminal), I am extremely limited in what I can do. I tried to install FF2.0 the other day, but after I extracted the tar.gz, I didn't know what to do. I tried a HOWTO I found on Ubuntu's community site, tried apt-get, but neither didn't work for some reason. So I'm stuck with FF1.5 for now. It's probably a simple fix, but that all the more profoundly demonstrates how difficult it can be to use even one of the most user-friendly distros available.
Don't get me wrong; I love the idea behind OSS and want to learn to use Linux better--I wouldn't be trying it out if I didn't. But I simply cannot use it for anything more than simple tasks like web surfing and office utilities because there is a high knowledge barrier that will just take time to overcome. If Linux can adapt like Nintendo and find a way to make Linux more accessible and bring those who can only handle Windows well into the Linux world, then we've got something. Until then, I'm afraid the author is right.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
In Windows, when it can't find my video driver, you get basic VGA with 256 colors. That's enough to either find the damned CD, or go to the manufacturer's website to download it. Worst case scenario: you can't find the driver at all, but you still have a working machine. Compare that to Linux. Last few times I've had that problem with Ubuntu or RedHat, I get some cryptic messages, then I get dumped out to a command prompt. That's a non-useable machine for anybody who is not a professional Unix administrator. I'll pick ugly vs. unuseable any day.
If the assertions in the article are true, then it's not the world that's unready for Linux. It's Linux that's unready for the world. The goal needs to be to adapt Linux to people, not to adapt people to Linux.
The backwards headline itself is an indciation of how poorly the problem is understood in some circles.
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
But I guess we should just know by default that you know Linux like the back of your hand?
Right.
As far as hardware compatabilty goes, the "it just works" situation will never happen with linux, because there is no stable kernel ABI, and there never will be one if Linus has his way (which he will for the forseeable future). This acticle has some quotes from Linus about ABIs.
Linus is the kernel boss. That is the decision he has made as "benevolent dictator", so we have to live with it. But it also locks out easy access for binary drivers. It somebody could change is his mind, I'm sure you'd see all kinds of vendor provided drivers on the install disks that come with your favorite hardware. I love open source. But I would also like to use any available hardware that exists in the windows world. There are lots of libre "foomatic" drivers out there, but they often don't work as well as the vendor-privided windows binary drivers. I just want my hardware to work and for it to work with all the features that I paid for. If that means I have to use a binary driver, then OK.
Personally, I think the lack of a stable driver ABI is holding back linux adoption, because it makes hardware a painfull issue.
If I read one more "once 3 years ago in band camp I installed Windows it was all MESSED UP" post I am going to run screaming from the building. Attention fellow nerds: YOUR ONE BAD EXPERIENCE WITH WINDOWS does not define the platform. Here is why Linux fails: I just read on the GAIM website that there was an upgrade that fixed broken Yahoo protocol. So I downloaded this tarball, now what? Why can't I just put in my WoW discs, have an install wizard start, ask me for root pw and then install the program/WINE and put a link under the games menu for me in KDE? I just installed this awesome new Ubuntu thing everyone is talking about, but my mp3's don't work? THAT is why linux fails.
What Linux needs to do in order to be a viable player in the market is to catch one type of consumer, the PC Illiterate type. These are people who either us MAC OS or Windows XP. All of these people use computers as tools for their job, not as a hobby. You have artists who would use a MAC over Windows, you have accountants who would use Windows because of Excel, etc. Etc. Those who work in the computer field will most likely use any of the platforms out there that their job requires them to do. Anyway, the people who do not work in the computer field just want something that makes their job easier. MS and MAC have set out to do that since the 1980s. MACs always excelled in simplicity and ease of use. In no way does a typical mac user have to learn the inner workins of the OS to fix a problem such as registry edit, etc. The overall learning curve of the MAC OS is little compared to Windows, however, MAC OS is heavily limited to its hardware (well it has been up until now, but even still, you need to be a geek to boot Windows on a mac) and thus not everyone is using it. Reason windows is out there is becuase it tries to do everything. It has evolved a lot to the point where the hardware now has to to support the OS, not the OS support the hardware. Linux is still just that, an OS that has support certain hardware first. That is why you have to be computer literate to be able to get full functionality out of Linux.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
very funny. just the other day my sister updated her desktop to windows xp.
everything was fine except it didn't recognize the network card.
interesting thing was that the support page for the card said xp should have the driver bundled.
i ended up having her download SIW via her laptop, sneaker net it over to the desktop, run it, and then relay the output to me via im. then i was able to find that said card used a via rhine iii chip, and locate the generic driver, that she again downloaded using her laptop and used a usb stick to move it over the desktop. only then did the card work.
with linux i would have told her to open up a console, get her to type dmsg (iirc), look for a ethernet card, then modprobe the driver as root. that is if linux didn't find the correct driver first time round.
about the only thing that can be trouble on a home linux these days are some older digital cameras that don't use the usb mass storage standard, scanner, older printers (most new ones can use the mac driver as mac and linux share the printer system) and wireless cards (because the manufacturers use software to limit the signal strength and at least in the US some of them could be to stronge a transmitter. security thru obscurity anyone?).
all in all its not a code issue but a politics issue. and political issues are always harder to solve then code issues. one solution would be to solidify the driver interface of linux, and bend over backwards to support binary blob drivers. another is for the manufacturers of the hardware to release all specs for all devices. the third is to move away from drivers fully, and instead implement standard hardware protocols (efi just moves the driver from the os to the "bios", in effect creating a mini os).
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
We should change the title to: Why Linux isn't ready for the real world.
This article is right on. It's so obvious to any ordinary person that the fact that Linux zealots just don't get it speaks for itself why Linux will always be a failure on the desktop for mainstream users.
Linux developers have never gotten it. The average user doesn't want to spend days getting their system configured. They don't want to have to load custom USB drivers, sound card drivers, etc. They want to install and be done quickly. Then you have Linux apps. There are perhaps a dozen desktop GUIs now and a dozen distributions. Every time one gets reasonable the development team implodes due to politics and a new splinter faction breaks off to write a "better" GUI and/or distribution. Then every Linux distro feels the need to include said new "better" GUI as an option for the user. There is no consistency for the user. Then the basic apps that run on Linux always seem like they are 95% done. Never 100% done mind you. They often have awkward half-assed interfaces, buggy features, useless feature creep and compatibility issues. Then there are the patches and patches and patches. People complain about Microsoft's patches, but they've never force me to recompile a kernel or main linked library. Who wants to do these things constantly, let alone across an enterprise? These issues have been going on for years. Every time I read one of these lame articles about how "Linux is ready for the desktop!" I just chuckle. Linux will never be ready for the desktop because the distributions and developers don't have the discipline to follow through on the mundane aspects of development that make software truly usable for the masses. Microsoft and Apple have nothing to worry about from Linux on the desktop.
I gave up on Linux years ago. I run OS X and don't look back. Apple is a company that understands how to get Unix on the desktop. Until Linux can get a unified look and feel and apps that work without constant tinkering it doesn't have a chance. Now go out and recompile your kernel and act like it's something every normal person wants to do on a weekly basis.
Shame on all you Linux nerds screaming "FUD! FUD! FUD!" It's the God's honest truth: you can't expect a marketplace filled with people who barely understand the basics of computing to have to worry about compiling device drivers.
When someone sits down at their computer after installing new hardware, they want to go: "click, click, it works. Great, now I can get to finishing that report/touching up that image/crunching those numbers".
I won't make the argument that Linux doesn't have a wide base of hardware support. But that support is very technical and inaccessible to the layperson. Extra, painless support needs to come from the Linux community, the hardware industry, or both.
Until then, people WILL continue to use crappy operating systems *cough*Windows*cough* because they can rely on easy instructions, wizards, pre-compiled drivers, and phone support.
Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty. Also, they usually only have the one PC to play with. Hardware just has to work.
Ok. First they imply Linux needs too much time, too much energy, and it's full of uncertainties. Second, they imply it's not reasonable to try to install on the single machine one might have since this is not serious, just a play, what you can't do with that single machine. Third they imply hardware just might not work under Linux.
Now let me try to state some things, not so implicitly. I can't even keep track of how many times I heard the argument about people not having the time, the energy or the will to learn new things, a new OS, a new application, a new way of doing things. Among those, the only one I take as eventually being valid, is the not-willing part.
If they so embracingly talk about the average people, let us state, that average computer users won't ever install an OS in their lives. They go the shop, buy a computer, use it, when need some damage control or repairs or new software, they just take it back to the shop then pick it up and continue using it. The only reason they might not want to pick up a computer with Linux as its preinstalled OS is that the only knowledge they could have ever picked up is related to one particular OS, and if they are not PC enthusiasts at some level, they won't consider learning a new OS or new apps. And why should they, if they can manage in their everyday lives ? And also keep in mind, that average people are good consumer citizens, they watch the ads to some extent, they believe most of the news and talks and political opinions, they mostly don't doubt the oh so often appearing objective surveys and comparisons. To change the not-willingness to learn a new OS and to try different apps for the same task is not an easy task among these crowds.
What Linux and FOSS could eventually do, is to try to fight on the terms and on the field of the "enemy". Fancier looks, targeted apps, and those with more features, installers with low user interaction, more easier hardware support. And doing all this while keeping in mind that the general public won't be interested in installers and such, since they don't do them, but you still have to make those installers fancy so as when they read those objective reviews they would get a good overall impression. And yes, the footsteps of the Mozilla & co. in building PR and public recognition should be followed all along the way.
If you look closely you can see how crowds of people can be easily influenced, by ads, by corporations, by political rhetorics, by charismatic people's talks, by heavy PR. FOSS should learn some of those tactics, and not just learn, incorporate and yes, exploit to some extent.
But remember, PR alone is not enough. FOSS and Linux really have to be able to show and prove their superiority, and do that in an easily recognizable way. Userfriendly Live disks of distributions was a good start back then, but also backfired to some extent, since many people who first came in contact with a live distro just thought about Linux as being some toy. Opinions change with time, but it's a slow process.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
q. q is how you exit man. and the funny thing is, if you run man man, you'd think it would tell you how to exit. but it doesn't. you have to read about the command line options and figure out that man actually runs the program /usr/bin/less to display man pages. so run man less, scroll about halfway through the file, and you'll find that to exit less you can hit q or Q or :q or :Q or ZZ. confusing at best. i've been a linux user for about seven years now, and that was the first time i really realized how arcane some of the commands are. i guess i'm just really used to it by now.
-- There, everybody likes a gorilla.
The world is ready for Linux, Linux just isn't ready for the world. It is absurd to try and dump the tiny market share of desktop Linux on consumers who would be quite happy to jump on a better, less expensive boat if one actually existed. This is why Linux made its way into servers and embedded devices years ago, and is struggling to achieve any meaningful desktop market share-Linux is largely built by and for Linux programmers, and that's never going to bring in the masses.
Well, it sounds like your big bugaboo is NTFS. Remember that NTFS is an undocumented file system. While many distros will detect and mount your NTFS file sytems read only, I think nobody wants to be responsible for what happens to your NTFS if you mount it read/write. This is probably why the captive-ntfs option, which seems the safest way of doing this, is not usually included as part of the standard distribution. If you want to mount NTFS r/w, then you take responsibilty for making it work and the consequences of failure. If you are dual booting, you might think about using a separate partition for data you share between the operating systems. There's an ext2 installable filesystem driver for Windows NT. Since Ext2 is both robust and well documented, it's safer going that way.
A word of advice if you plan to use captive-ntfs to mount NTFS volumes r/w. Experimenting with various kernel versions is asking for trouble with captive. Find a version of the kernel and a version of captive-ntfs that are reported to work together on your version of the distro, get it working, and stick with that.
With respect to fstab being gibberish -- well I suppose. At least the gibberish is documented. Most Linux distros will give you GUI tools for managing mounts; so you can think of editing fstab as being like editing the corresponding entries in the Windows Registry, only with documentation.
I have found Mandriva to be a good newbie distro, by the way.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Ok so a lot of you are griping cause this article told you that you're baby is ugly and you may have every right to be mad. A lot of the points the author makes can be pointed at Windows as well. However, there is an aspect of Linux that is not very user friendly that relates to usability for new users. This is the documentation. Now not all is bad, but more often than not, I come across a project site on SourcForge that is written in linux geek-speak. Now I have been using linux for about three years now and can understand this strange language, but someone coming from the windows world would be completely lost. For example, I recently switched the girlfriend over to linux and soon afterwards I had to leave town for work. She was interested in installing a text-to-speech tool. I didn't have much experience with these tools in linux, but I was easily able to walk her through opening up the GUI package manager and searching text-to-speech and finding two results. Festival sounded like what she needed, so it was then just a matter of checking off "festival" and clicking apply. Then came the tricky part. It turned out this was a command line tool (very scary for someone new to linux and not a windows power user). Furthermore, since I didn't have prior experience with the program, nor did i have a computer in front of me, all I could tell her was to Google the program and find some documentation. This led her to the project's official page where she was bombarded with all kinds of programming and linux jargon that she became a deer in the headlights and just waited for my return so I could tinker with it. While this is just one program and it is not hugely common one, this is still the case with many other programs. The big ones have great docs like OOo and others, but the smaller projects are very off-putting to new users. Going forward I ask all developers that when they create documentation for your open source projects, that all documentation, no matter what stage of the project you are in, be in plain english that anyone can understand. This can only increase the popularity of your projects by allowing more people to understand what it is you are doing and thus allowing those people to help support you in whatever way they can, whether it just be using the software or having a significant role in developing it.
"It's not whether you win or lose, it's how drunk you get." -- H. J. Simpson
http://www.realmeme.com/roller/page/realmeme?entry =linux_meme
My interpretation? In the United States, Linux is being marginalized as a specialty niche server. Predictably, Vista is ramping up and gaining mindshare and buzz.
The Linux curves seem clear, they're indicative of a product which has topped out.
... it looks like Mac OSX is the winner!
Give them something they can use that works well with everything else. Ultimately it looks like Linux is getting there and may even have a chance of becoming a major desktop... I'm not as pessimistic as the article seems to be.
I hear you. I believe you. I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since 1999. And I have to admit, Mac OSX is calling pretty loudly to me. (I type this on a 10 year old iMac running 10.4 - it's wonderful)
Linux is great for servers. That's my bread and butter, and I won't switch to anything else anytime soon - CentOS/RHEL is a dream in this space.
But on my desktop? My 3 year old Dell Inspiron running Fedora Core is about to get the boot - to be replace by a Macbook Pro with OSX, Windows, and Linux all running under VMWare or Parallels!
(Now, if only the arrow keys worked right in a textarea box in Firefox!)
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
It's true that the world isn't ready for linux, but the reasons offered in the article are mostly bogus.
The biggest obstacle is one he doesn't even mention: people have vast amounts of work tied up on their Windows boxes in proprietary formats. It took me roughly five years to convert completely from MacOS to Linux, for this reason. Most people don't care enough to put in that kind of effort.
Find free books.
Linux hardware will never work out of the box.
It _might_ happen if the number of possible machine configuartions drops to say 100, or until all hardware manufacturers make a serious effort to insure that their hardware works with a number of distributions.
Neither situation will ever occur, so it will never happen.
The reality is that _Windows_ hardware rarely works out of the box, it's just been pre-installed and and tested most of the time. If you build your own machine you will end up spending a lot of time tracking down and playing with drivers.
I exclusively use Linux, and the hardware problem is a pain, but get used to it; it will never go away.
I notice a few things about the article that're just plain wrong. Hardware support, for example. For the most part, when I install Linux on a computer all the hardware's autodetected and the correct drivers installed by the installer. No updates, no vendor driver discs, once the install's done everything's there. The only thing that isn't typically done is installing the proprietary video-card drivers, and even then basic drivers are installed that support the full range of the video card's capabilities other than 3D accelleration. When I had to reinstall Windows XP last week, by contrast, the install was only the start of the process. Once the install was done I had to go through the process of installing all the vendor drivers: motherboard chipset, network interface, sound, IDE, printer, scanner, keyboard, mouse. Then I had to install the video-card driver and the monitor driver, then reconfigure the display settings. None of that comes with Windows XP, all it has are the most basic generic drivers that lack support for most of the hardware's capabilities. And once that's done, there's the several-hour slog getting all of Windows' defaults changed from it's initial assumptions to ones that work on a reasonably-designed network (eg. "No you will not contact Microsoft for time, you'll query the timeserver you were told to in the DHCP response."). And this isn't some ancient system, this is a fairly recent P4-based system.
For applications, the same thing. On a Linux system I just select from a list of what I want during install, and it's installed. On Windows if I want a word processor, or a spreadsheet, or a graphics program or just about anything, I have to go to the store and get it and then walk through it's installer. When it comes to Linux apps it's just a much easier process than with Windows. The exceptions are, oddly, the stuff that isn't from the Linux community: commercial software or things like the proprietary ATI and nVidia video-card drivers. The only stuff that's hard to install on Linux is the commercial, proprietary software. Why should Linux take the heat because the big software companies with millions of dollars in revenue can't write a basic shell script that queries the system for some locations, copies files to the correct places and creates a few symlinks?
The only thing it's right on is the state of gaming. And even then, I don't think Linux is to blame so much as Windows. Doom 3, Quake 4, they run nicely on my Linux system. But they're written to use OpenGL, so it's easy to port them to things other than Windows. Games like Everquest 2 that use DirectX are all but impossible to port, so they're not ported. DirectX is, oddly, a "standard" controlled entirely by Microsoft that changes at it's whim (see DirectX 10 for an example). And of course it wasn't Linux that crippled OpenGL by giving users a choice of running OpenGL only through an emulation layer that mapped it (poorly) to DirectX or giving up the new desktop rendering system that's one of the main attractions of the latest OS release.
I started trying to use Linux in the late 90s, and at that point I couldn't even get the monitor resolution working. Linux has come a very long way since then. Ubuntu is 95% of the way there. But hardware compatibility is indeed the big problem. (Well, that, and fonts. All those damn proprietary fonts that you have to figure out how to install yourself or else all your transferred files look like crap.)
1) Printers. Everybody uses printers. Everybody. What does Linux have? CUPS. It's a great printing system. It's put together and maintained by real altruists. Don't get me wrong. But the user interface is HOPELESS. There's a priceless description of the problems, much better than I could say it myself. Gutenprint is a huge addition / improvement to CUPS. When the GUI frontends work (eg foomatic), they help, but the browser-based GUI isn't really in the ballpark. To begin with, a Windows user would never guess how to get at it. It's not like you can go to Start-System-Printers, and a little note pops up saying "type localhost:631 in the address bar in your browser." I know that many of the hardware problems are due to uncooperative manufacturers not providing data for drivers, but John and Jane Q. Public don't care. They have their own problems.
2) Networking. Almost everybody has home networks. In the good old days, say seven years ago, networking was a nightmare on all systems. Windows users are now used to everything just finding everything and not arguing. Wireless and wired. Linux users have the added problem of having to network across OSs. But however the problem gets solved, a solution is not optional. Turning on your computer and having to fight with networking is a kiss of death for Linux.
Speaking of uncooperative manufacturers, that's not something that any amount of change in Linux can solve. It seems to me that that's a regulatory issue. It's a fundamentally anti-competitive practice, and anti-monopoly laws ought to apply. It wouldn't be fair to require manufacturers to make sure their equipment works with everyone else's, but neither should they be able to prevent others from getting it to work. They should be required to provide the necessary information, which is a government function, not a Linux one.
This is exactly what happened to me. I've installed Redhat, Slack, Fedora Core, Ubuntu, Debian. 0 of these were able to install properly on all of my hardware, which was pretty straightforward: AMD Thunderbird 700, MSI mobo, PC3200 ram, Seagate IDE harddisk, Plextor DVD burner, ATI 9600 Pro. I literally messed around with that machine for over a month. Asking questions about hardware on linux forums usually resulted in a) being called a n00b or b) being completely ignored. I later tried to set up Debian on this machine again because debian had the easiest install of all the distros I tried, and couldn't get LAMP working; I had apache & php running, I had mySQL running, but I couldn't get the two to talk. Never got a single answer on forums or on IRC, not even someone who would take the time to listen to what was going on.
:/
Experiences like that drive me back to windows. I've only had one install problems with windows xp; my latest system has a 4-disk SATA RAID array, and I didn't buy a floppy drive for it. After scratching my head (I had the raid drivers on a CD; why oh why would the installer demand a floppy), I googled my problem, slipstreamed a new install CD and had my system up, with a delay of maybe 30 minutes.
Linux seems like it could be a lot of fun and very powerful. After spending 3 years programming, 2 of which were spent on active server pages & SQL 7.0, I feel like I would be expanding my abilities as a programmer by quite a bit by learning how to do the same thing using free software on a linux server. But the response I've received several times from the community makes me not want to use it at all.
DS
I recently configured Ubuntu and XP Pro on the same (Thinkpad) laptop consecutively over a couple of days.
:-)
Getting Ubuntu installed was genuinely trivial. Getting XP installed was a total pain in the butt, with most of my time spent divining the correct drivers to download and the appropriate order in which to install them.
However, points in XP's favour:
It was installed out of the box - I was doing this because I wanted the laptop installed MY way, not IBM/Lenovo's way (gah, it had 96 processes running as delivered).
It looks and feels a hell of a lot more professional than Ubuntu.
Strictly speaking the driver issue wasn't XP's fault - that's up to the hardware vendor.
Points in Ubuntu's favour:
The software's all free, and nobody asked me to validate my installation (or refused to accept the OEM sticker from the bottom of the laptop forcing me to use a spare license instead - not everone would have had this).
Strictly speaking the driver issue wasn't Ubuntu's fault - that's up to the hardware vendor
Maybe Ubuntu could be tweaked to run as smoothly as I like, maybe (probably) it didn't fully recognise the hardware that it was running on.
If distributions like Ubuntu can be sufficiently commonplace to be a correctly pre-installed option on consumer laptops, and manage the last 10% of the look and feel issues, I think Linux on the desktop is a real possibility. But I couldn't tell you how far off that's going to be.
--- These are not words: wierd, genious, rediculous
sorry for being so late to the party but... I know more than a few people who still dont know that there is another option besides Windows or MAC. If they dont even know... they can't use it.
most people cant even use the command line in Windows, they can't self support. Hell, my mom didnt even use a mouse until this year.
If you cant get your co-workers to stop install BS screensavers that are loaded with spyware because "it was cute", do you really think they could handle something that is a complete mystery to some of there kids that know how to use windows inside and out?
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert.
Expert? Maybe not. But as with anything in life, people should have some sort of fundamental understanding of how things work. Things that are easy to do now get taken for granted, mainly because most people don't have the will or desire to learn more than they have to. Take Windows for example- Microsoft has put so much time and research into making computers accessible to the point where really anyone can learn the basics relatively quickly. As far as most users are concerned, they push the button to turn the computer on in the morning, click the little picture of the blue W to open word, and click the little picture of the printer to convert what they typed on the screen to physical paper. If anything goes wrong or doesn't work in that cycle, they're generally helpless and need to call for support, because they have no desire to figure anything out for themselves, even if it's a very minor problem.
Currently with linux, more than a few things require actual thought, and some sort of understanding of how the system works to get around. Should linux developers focus on making things more idiot-proof, given that all the R & D Microsoft has put into making things easier goes to waste when some people don't understand that the caps-lock button makes all typed letters capitol? I don't think so. The reason people have no desire to learn anything about how their system works is because for the past few years, Microsoft has been telling them "oh don't worry about that, we'll make it easier in the next version of Windows/Office." Pandering to idiots only serves to increase the number of idiots using computers, and does nothing to help teach the idiots so they're no longer idiots, but experienced users. Linux is a good starting ground for that. I wouldn't expect the office accountant to learn how to recompile a kernel, but if they at least had an idea of what a kernel was, or why it's important, it goes a long way in helping to explain what's actually wrong if there is a problem.
Do you need to be a rocket scientist to use linux? No. Should you have some common sense and willingness to at least learn something about how the system works? Sure. Rather than change linux to be fit the world, why not use it as a platform to help educate/change the world so not everyone becomes an idiot?
Granted, there's a ton of stuff available for Linux as long as you know where to look, but for your average user that's not enough.
Sometimes even knowing exactly where to look is useless if you aren't an expert and / or don't have time (and it -does- take a commitment of sometimes hours or days or more) to find what you want. *buntu, for instance, has a really convenient, comprehensive, built-in means of acquiring software. Unfortunately, especially from the eyes of a Windows convert, every single piece of software in there is a no-name brand, which in their experience almost always translates to total crap software.
An often overlooked benefit of actually paying for your software off the shelf is that Big Box Mart only carries tried-and-true good software (in the sense that good means 'does what the average user wants with minimal effort', not good as in 'world-class professional software that requires a 2-year study program to use') because only good software will sell like hotcakes, and in a teeny margin market like they run, they make nearly nothing if something doesn't sell by the boatload. When I go to Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal-Mart, etc., I can grab just about any random CD-Burner, Audio Player, DVD Video Player, Office Productivity Suite, Classic Arcade Pack, and whatever else right off the shelf without spending much time comparing features with the at most one or two other similar products on the shelf because I know that those two or three are probably the two or three best and, far more importantly, most user-friendly. If it's on the shelf, it means that the average Wal-Mart customer has been able to rub enough brain cells together to get it to work to their satisfaction. That's a guarantee of user-friendliness beyond compare, and pretty much non-existent in the *nix world.
Compare to the repositories on *buntu: Page upon page of weird name after weird name for all things that for some reason or other happened to generate a 'hit' on keyword search for 'media player'. I do not have time to go through this list and figure out which one to use. Let's not even discuss the way that most distros, *buntu included, will give you several different programs to do the same damned thing. Pick ONE that works very well with minimal issue and ship that. I can't be bothered to screw with this stuff (and I have tried on average one or two distros, for about a month each, every year for the last five or so), so heck knows that my non-technical friends and family can't even consider it.
Unpleasantries.
water is wet, the sky is blue, and gravity is still in effect.
This really can't be a surprise. And, to everyone who says Linux is not ready for the world, it is kind of the same thing. The biggest difference is that the world is not going to change.
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
To exit the manpage, hit q.
Windows users do not install windows. They buy it with their computer and the big box that holds the CD drives that sits next to it (or under their desk).
If at any time, the user is required to use the command line to fix a problem, their computer is broken.
Compiling drivers and make and apt-get may seem natural to some people (we'll call those people "gurus"), but gurus are not the mainstream. And hardware vendors and game makers don't really care about supporting gurus. They can support themselves. If there aren't enough users ready to but the product, why waste money supporting it.
This is the potential death spiral that linux is fighting against. People won't buy linux because games and software don't work (and buy work I mean insert CD, click a few buttons, and play). Games and software companies won't support linux because there aren't enough pre-existing users to make it profitable.
Press q to exit the man page. Also, its quite easy to live without the terminal, you can install programs using YUM, Synaptic, or KPackage. And if you have more questions, ask someone on irc or in a forum. Linux is much more usable then Windoze. A pentium 2 with 128 mbs of ram can watch movies under Linux, something that the same PC could not do under Windows. You have more area to work with (workspaces), and more free memory. And you can customize to your liking.
Despite the fact that i honestly like to hear about linux success stories - id rather keep the raw power thats inside my box by using vim and editing configs by hand or scripting.
I want the system i like to expand and grow, but not become any less powerfull.
Its a hard trade off - a price im willing to pay.
I just like my niche - im a nerd, and i dont require others to be nerds.
Just the same way that i dont want the car repair guy laughing at me for not knowing every bolt of my car.
I just want to drive it, if i want to tinker - ill either spend some time, or get a simpler car.
So please stop this 'linux should be simple enough for joe sixpack'.
It shouldnt, id doesnt have to, and i dont care if it ever will - i like it just the way it is.
More options come along, the old ones are simplified with guis, but i dont care if something is idiot proof, i just want to have total controll over what happening inside my box.
As for the 'doesnt work out of the box' i have only one thing to say:
knoppix
No - it doesnt work 100% of the time. But neither does windows.
While a lot of these topics have been brought up as both stories and comments on Slashdot, this article pretty much sums up why Vista could be absolutely terrible, and people would still believe there is no other option.
How bad does something have to be, to consider OSX?
I'd rather think, how amazingly good does something have to be to not consider OSX?
Microsoft does not drive this. Hardware makers do. They build "Vista compatible" systems. Users don't "install" Windows. They get preinstalled Windows from the hardware OEM. When they reinstall the customized CD with all needed drivers that came with their system (because Windows crashed), they believe they are "installing" Windows. When they buy new hardware, it comes with Windows drivers.
Actually installing Windows on random hardware is a long and frustrating process. The drivers are all closed source, and the companies involved are understandably not interested in supporting old hardware (just in selling new). You have to google endlessly tracking down this and that power Windows user with drivers available for public download (in technical violation of the license). I've done this for two 1999 era PCs (to play games and run tax software). Sure, Windows will install in 16 color VGA mode with no sound, no problem (so will any Linux distro). To actually get all the hardware to work takes weeks.
I have network cards that worked on Win2k that don't on win2k3. WTF?
I have games that won't play in Windows (Max Payne)
I have a wireless card that doesn't work in linux.
Have you tried doing the things you're asking of Linux in Windows?
Have you tried to gain access to the data on a Linux partition from within Windows? It's actually pretty difficult.
When people install GNU/Linux on a Windows box they expect it to automatically set up a dual boot option and configure itself so the two continue to work perfectly and in harmony. Have you tried installing Windows on a machine which already has Linux on it? It just zaps things so you have a job getting access to your GNU/Linux install.
Windows now comes with an ever decreasing number of commandline utilities, but with GNU/Linux the opposite is true. When it comes to configuration, how easy is it to edit the all-important Windows registry when you can't boot into Windows itself? Bloody hard is the answer, unless you're prepared to pay for suitable third party tools.
Most Windows tutorials don't explain what's going on under the hood either. They explain how to use the GUI, and that's your lot, so you should probably only be comparing them to KDE or GNOME tutorials. It's all very superficial stuff.
Commandline work is always going to be the domain of those who know what they're actually doing, and not the casual user. Perhaps all we need to do is hide all the options and programs that require a decent level of technical expertise in the same way that Windows does.
The biggest unexploited advantage of Linux is the same biggest unexploited advantage of the BSDs, UNIX and Apple's OSX: the failure of application developers to leverage the X Windows System as a network protocol.
When an enduser has a graphical display that is running an X server and the display is connected to the network instead of to a PC running Linux then the user has no hardware, Linux or X issues to deal with. The enduser gets the same display over the network that they would get from a PC's video cable but the responsibility for issues related to PC hardware, Linux and X configuration issues lies with people somewhere else in the world who are properly trained, equipped and paid to deal with these issues.
All of these 'operating environments' have the ability, because of X, to deliver all of the software applications that anyone wants without requiring endusers to have anything more than displays, rich user input, a network connection and an X server.
Most people would agree that, without X, Linux, BSD, UNIX would be crippled in a world where endusers want to move from the 'Microsoft experience' to something better. These same people need to also understand that without making use of the capability of X to be a networking protocol, a remote display/input protocol, these operating systems have to try to compete with the 'Microsoft experience' on terms that are very favorable to Microsoft. In a world where X would be used to provide endusers with software applications but do not also require them to own and maintain PC's Microsoft would be at a magnificent disadvantage.
The PC running a Microsoft is not a requirement for endusers to be able to use software applications and neither is the PC running Linux, BSD, OSX or UNIX. This is not theory or pie in the sky. It is X.
The problem is with the software, as soon as the user needs anything more than browse,read email and write letters they hit the wall with Linux.
I have a photographer friend who uses Photoshop extensively. When fixing her Windows machine that kept freezing, I decided to make a it a double boot with Ubuntu as the second OS. I added all her bookmarks from Firefox, I made sure she could access her documents, her expensive high end Epson printer had a nice functional Gutenprint driver, and of course, I added GIMP as an alternative to Photoshop.
When I demoed the system to her, up until we got to the GIMP part, my friend was impressed with Ubuntu. She liked the clean Gnome menus, she liked how her printer could print, she liked that she didn't have to use an antivirus and she liked Ubuntu because it means "humanity towards others" -- so far all was well.
Then the bomb was dropped: she had asked a simple question -- "Where is Photoshop?" I quietly told her that there is nice replacement for it called GIMP. And headed over to the Graphics>GIMP menu to show her GIMP -- what I think is an excellent image manipulation program. But she told me to stop the whole thing and to give back her Photoshop. She didn't care that windows' security had more holes than a chunk of Swiss cheese, she didn't care that her Windows machine would freeze once in a while, she didn't care about the "free" part and she definitely didn't give a damn anymore about "Humanity towards others" when she could not have her Photoshop. Just the fact that she would have to tell other professionals that she uses a program called "GIMP" was enough for her to not wanting to try it. In other words just the names and the "image" of some of the OS applications sound "goofy", childish or "geeky" and no matter how much we don't like it but appearances and first impression are important (the marketing folk know that too well).
Now, I know that GIMP is probably just as good and that with more or less effort one can achieve the same result with GIMP as one can with Photoshop. I have been using it for many years with success, BUT I am also a geek who likes to write device drivers and re-compile kernels. I love Linux and would never go back to Windows. I figured out a way to do everything I needed in Linux. But most people are not geeks like me. They want their computer to do a specific job. In other words the computer to them is a "tool" much like a monkey wrench -- just a means to an end, to me the computer is a "the end".
People falsely assume that Microsoft conquered the world because of its great operating system. It was not the operating system, it was Office (especially Excel and Word) and other applications, most written by a 3rd party, that made Windows into what it is. Most people who use Windows would probably agree that it sucks: bad security, blue screens and restarts -- everyone hates those things. But as long as Office along with Photoshop, Dreamweaver and other software that people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars is there -- they will be glued to Windows.
I realize that it is a "chicken and egg" problem: if Linux would be more popular the software companies would invest in porting their application to Linux (think Maya, Matlab and Mathematica...) but part of the reason that Linux is not that popular is because most of the applications will not work in Linux.
P.S. No, I didn't try running Photoshop with WINE because I heard it is not stable, and Linux also didn't have an easy way to calibrate and match the input/output color profiles and was missing some other software that my friend was using. I just used Photoshop as a prime example.
This is not a failing in the world, it's a failing in Linux. Maybe failing is too strong a word. Linux was never intended for the audience we're speaking for, despite a lot of people wanting to apply it to them.
Linux was created for computer enthusiasts. While that group has grown enormously over the past few decades it does not make it "normal people." Linux is great for someone who wants to buy a computer, and play with it, learn how everything works in it etc. It's great in specific tasks, server or scientific uses, but any time you're working in that kind of environment you have dedicated staff to manage the computers, or already know how to do it yourself.
This is the exact same problem that's faced linux since I started using it in 1994. Linux is orders of magnitude better than it was then, but it's not really made much progress in being able to be a system for your standard computer user.
It works great if it's pre-installed for people, with the software they will need in say an office environment.
It does not work for an average user at home who wants to turn the machine load a disc, wait, answer a few questions, and then be able to get to work.
I've been using Linux for a lot of years; I started with pre-1.0 slackware downloaded over a 14.4kbps modem onto floppies.
I guess that makes me experienced, but I honestly just want an OS that works. I probably COULD configure Linux to do all my desktop activities, but I continue to use it only as a server OS. The reason is that I don't WANT to be an OS expert, any more than most people want to be a mechanic in order to drive a car.
I've gotten way past the point in my life where I want to waste time screwing with my computer just for its own sake. I want my computer time spent getting things done, even if it's just reading email or watching cartoons. I would like to be running Linux instead of Windows, but I'm not willing to spend an extra 4 hours every time I want to get a new app running. I want the computer to run apps that I want it to run, and if that means running Windows, then I'll live with it.
I'm very happy to see some of the new distros. I particularly like Ubuntu; it's come the closest to install and go as any I've tried lately, but even so it doesn't really put me in the non-windows business.
Recently I installed a M-Audio 1010LT semi-pro audio card along
with using a M-Audio Axiom 25 MIDI keyboard. What was I getting
into did I ask myself since I'm running Linux.
Surprise, both are instantly recognized under SuSE 10.0 and
Fedora 5. Not even a chance to sweat upon the install, apart
from getting those things out of their boxes, damn!
Funny thing is, the Axiom 25 instructions for Windows users are
1-page long with some 10 steps to follow or so.
None for Linux. None at all.
Talk about user-friendliness. For these two devices, Linux is
100% user-friendly.
I installed Linux a couple of times back in the 90s and got a nice command line, but never used it for anything.
I've recently installed Ubuntu and it seems nearly ready for prime time.It detected all my devices on a fairly new laptop. There are still some rough edges and some things took much longer than they should to set up. For example, it took me about 7 or 8 hours to get wifi going. It turned out that the driver didn't like the fact I had my router set to not broadcast the SSID. XP handles that with no problem. Another problem I had is the first time I tried to burn a CD, I got some cryptic error. That one turned out to be that I was not authorized to use the cdrom device and had to go create a text file with a rule in it. On the plus side, Linux played nicely with my Windows workgroup and was able to access my desktop's shared drives with no configuration needed. It also mounted the NTFS and FAT32 partitions automatically and was able to read from NTFS and write to FAT32 with no extra setup. The Synaptic package manager under Ubuntu is also a joy to work with.
So, a lot of things work very well these days, and a few things still require way more tinkering than they should. I'm motivated by WPA, WGA, and everything I read about Vista to make the switch. I've made a checklist of everything I do under XP and am slowly writing down Linux equivalents for those tasks. I may still keep XP around under VMWare for the few things I can't easily replace, but I see Linux as my main OS not too far in the future.
Installing and running Slackware was a learning experience, and it got me acquainted with the Linux world, but once I got it installed I didn't know what else to do with it, since I had tons of games and it was impossible to play them with WINE or anything else. So, I switched back to Windows.
Recently I've been more and more interested in Linux, and it seems like there are a few good distros (Ubuntu, Freespire) that attempt make Linux more user-friendly. But it's still not quite there, and it won't be until two major things change.
1. Hardware Support: This is a no-brainer, and I know that there have been a lot of advances in this field, so I'll skip to the second and most important change.
2. Application Installation: As long as users are forced to deal with the command-line interface, the general public will never be ready to switch to Linux. In Windows, all you have to do is open up the executable "Setup/Install" file, and a nice little set up utility will guide you through the process. Click "Next" a few times, and you're up and running. When installing and running programs in Linux becomes this easy, you will see people flocking toward Linux distributions. Linspire/Freespire has made considerable progress using their CNR service, but it's still not the same. Don't give me a private library of programs you can click and run, let me install anything I want with the click of a button!
A lot of Linux users seem to have the attitude of "If you're afraid of the CLI, you don't deserve to use the OS", but that's a load of crap. Make it easier for people to use, and you will see the popularity of Linux increase exponentially. I guarantee it!
This is approximately how I feel, but it's mostly the desktops that get me. Linux as a server is like unix, fine. I started out as a unix programmer.
Mac osx is nice since they do a good job of sweeping the gibberish under the rug.
My first tests with linux years ago didn't go well. I did one attempt at a linux version upgrade, and it wiped out my file system. And I found that I would need a high end system to run a windowing desktop, because mostly what I saw was thrashing to disk. Run a couple of apps and it was unusable. Recently I have tried knoppix and ubuntu CDs, really nice, if the ntfs support was there, and the whole nonsense with navigating partitions was smoothed out. ntfs may be working now, I don't have time to follow the development.
Probably the biggest thing keeping me out of the linux world was the geeky nature of the howtos, etc. (And I had always loved the early unix manuals.) I found most documentation impenetrably obtuse, and I often gave up at the first paragraph. The scattered user forums for support not very helpful. I got the feeling that the gurus wouldn't condescend to help a noob, or everyone was too busy. Your intellegence is measured by how well you can memorize and recall thousands of poorly documented script file settings.
The ultimate test for me, and one that I ask people going into linux is: "yeah ok, but just try to print a file." I gave up on this more than once due to time constraints, but I'm sure it can be done.
The world IS ready for Linux, and this is proven by it's world wide use as a server and desktop OS.
I use Ubuntu Linux at home, and I love it. It's easy to install, and all of my hardware worked after the initial installation. Applications are widely available and easy to install. There is strong community support, making almost all problems easy to solve. I have zero virus or spyware problems. It's free. It's good. It's fun. There has never been a case where I felt that my knowledge of computer hardware was insufficient to use Ubuntu. On the contrary I have never even had to think about my hardware at all.
On the other hand, I constantly get calls from Windows users who cannot even use their computers because of spyware, viruses, BSOD's, can't figure out how to install drivers, etc. Anyone who claims to have a trouble free XP experience is either an expert (not the target audience for this article), or has an IT department on call. Joe User (the target audience for this article) does not generally have a trouble free XP experience.
Maybe the world is not ready for Windows.
granted, I use FreeBSD, not Linux, but I can't imagine that 'q' doesn't quit the man program. I've never heard of this "shift ZZ" thing, though I just tried it and it worked.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
Every time I get excited about desktop linux (dapper drake) something happens to completely let me down (edgy eft). I've been using linux (desktop and server) 40hrs a week for the last 10yrs. You would think 10yrs would be plenty of time for a desktop operating system to mature and pretty much be rock solid. That isn't the case with the linux desktop. Can you imagine paying for an operating system where basic functionality breaks from one release to the next? No way. I've always been pretty critical of Microsoft and their operating systems but to be completely honest, linux on the desktop makes Microsoft look good :( Why do I still use it as my work desktop? I have no idea. I've always been a strong linux supporter and I truly believe that no server operating system out there comes close to a well configured Debian install. For the desktop though? I think its years away if ever :(. Don't mean to be such a downer about this stuff but god its depressing.
...why Linux isn't ready for the world?
"Walk around any store selling software and see how much Linux-compatible software you can find."
What a dumb statement. Linux software isn't found in stores.I caught the Mountain Wumpus! He gave me his treasure chest ($100) to let him go free again.
Was this article actually published in 2000?, because that's the user experience I remember from back then.
Installs were a nighmare where you had to know the exact details of your video card, the resolutions it supported, as well as the type of network card you had. Sound? Forget about sound. You'll probbably never get it working.
Software was available, but there's no decent office suite. Oh they're working on it, but it pretty much sucks right now. You want a web-browser? We've got one, but I hope you don't want to visit sites that use SSL, because that's an add-on. ALso 20% of the websites won't load properly.
Come back to 2006 and I'll tell you my experience with installing Ubuntu on a new laptop last month. All the hardware "just works", from the video to the sound, to the ethernet to even the frickin Wireless (which amazed even me). I even found NetworkManager and Network Manager Applet that actually configures and supports WEP and WPA without me having to screw around with learning crap about wpa_supplicant, the network initiation process, etc. I will say that NetworkManager could have been just installed by default. I had to hear about it from somewhere else.
It actually has a nice frontend to install more software. There's no need to "go to a store" and buy anything because everything I need is freely available. Remote desktop to a windows machine "just works", Eclipse was a bit of a pain in the ass as it defaults to gcj for the JVM (which sucks ass). But hey, we're already at the level of computer expert when you're delving into software development, so I'll forgive them. I can also connect to my fileserver and it "just works". I can even play MP3s from the fileserver without problem.
There's still room for improvement. I still can't play some video feeds on some websites. That's mostly because of the Microsoft monopoly and websights choosing windows-only formats. Even that I think is going to die because even Windows users have problems with that. There's too many options for wi-fi managers. NetworkManager and nm-applet works perfectly, and I could barely get the others to work. They also conflict with each other with little warning that they do.
AccountKiller
I built a MythTV box recently, its a dual boot with Windows Media Center all the same hardware. Under Media Center TV Output was "click" and the video is on the TV. A week in and the thing still will not show me video on my TV under Linux. I can get the Linux console to show sort of...blurry and constantly scrolling...X I got nothing, it boots into X and All I get is a blank Blackscreen...!
I am a Linux expert and a hardware expert and I am still struggiling with this...how do we expect the average Joe to be able to use Linux.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I recently stopped playing World of Warcraft and no longer had a reason to stay on the windows platform. I use open office, media player classic, and Firefox and that's pretty much it. So I thought I'd try Ubuntu out since I'd heard so many good things about it.
I burned the disk, backed up my data and took the plunge.
The problem was immediate. I have a lcd monitor, a top of the line NEC monitor that is smart enough to whine, moan and complain when the resolution isn't 1280x1024. Ubuntu however gave my top resolution options as 1024x768. I thought Ubuntu probably needed the NVidia drivers so I headed over and discovered that installing NVidia's Linux drivers made the US tax code read like a harry potter novel by comparison.
Needless to say, this ended my experiment with Linux. (And yes I know there's a command line to reconfigure the graphics shell but any time you need to send anyone to the command line to get an install working you've pretty much admitted failure.)
But wait! It doesn't end there! A few days later on Digg there was a thread about Linux being ready for the desktop! I relayed my casual user experience almost exactly the way I have here. Two hours later my user experience had been burried down to negative numbers as had all the other "negative testimonials". Yep, the Linux fan bois had run roughshod over anyone who actually had the nerve to explain why they still thought Linux wasn't ready for the desktop and there were legions of them.
So the problem is two fold really. Linux still doesn't nail the "out of box installs" anywhere near as well as Windows does and there is a sizable portion of the community that would kill the messengers rather than address the problem.
(All that work just for a lame last-thing-friday gag. Sheesh!)
"The one area of Linux ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Your average user doesn't have the time, the energy or the inclination to deal with uncertainty. Also, they usually only have the one PC to play with. Hardware just has to work. There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility - it's what people want."
Ooooh! So that's what people want! Well that's easy then, let's just fix that issue right now. Silly linux developers, making hardware support poor on purpose because they didn't know it was important to people.
Seriously though, Windows hardware support is horrible out of the box. The only reason hardware works on it is because the hardware manufacturers spend a lot of time making drivers for it. Of course, for an end user, the reality is that Linux doesn't support their gadget and they don't care why, but blaming linux developers for that is completely backwards. Until hardware manufacturers start writing linux drivers, there will always be some hardware that doesn't work as well on Linux as Windows. No sense blaming the Linux devs for what is essentially a market share problem (chicken/egg).
By the way, try upgrading a random Win98/WinMe era laptop to W2K to see how nice the hardware support is on Windows. At least one or two devices won't work because the drivers are proprietary and were never released for W2K/XP. And that's it, no chance of ever getting it working.
It's gotten to be routine, now. Take a bunch of assumptions about Linux that are complete mythology pulled out of the ass of conventional non-wisdom, and frame tham as a troll smearing Linux. These are cut and pasted straight out of FUD lore. I'm now happy every time I see one of these. The more the mainstream media hysterically screams about how bad Linux is and how no one wants to use it, the more the Linux user base grows. GandhiCon three-and-a-half.
If Linux is so terrible, how come nobody can stop talking about it? If relentless negative press is the surest sign that a platform will never succeed, how come I'm not seeing these articles about OS/2 Warp or BeOS or Plan9?
It is not that the world is not ready for Linux, it's that Linux is not ready for the rest of the world. That isn't a put-down, it's actually part of its strength. If Linux was ready for the world, it would just be another bloated OS like Windows. 'Everyone' shouldn't be running the same OS -- diversity is good. In ecology, healthy environments are those that display biodiversity -- the same is true of computers, think of its as cyberdiversity. And after a long dark period, we're finally starting to see some of it. Vive la difference!
The best thing about my new car is that it's free, which really jibed well with my bank account status.
The first bad news came when I tried to actually get in the car and drive; I received an error message on the dashboard that said, "No tires detected."
I got out and checked, and there were tires on the car, so I got back in and punched the steering wheel a few times. After a few hours of poring over the manual I discovered that I had to tell the car about what kind of tires I had, so, after some digging, I found the button to initiate tire declarations (for some reason it was called INI RUBBER-BASED ROAD INTERFACE LIB EZ). I pushed it and a little sign lit up saying, "If your Linux car is a 2006 model or better you may need to install a rubber-based road interface synchronizer before attempting to declare tire status to the vehicle."
I went to the hardware store and bought one, but it was the wrong size so I had to go back again. The instructions were in German but I still managed to wedge it in there. I pushed the button and went on with my tire type declarations, after which the car decided to recognize my tires.
Great, I thought -- now where's the gear-shift?
After hours of searching I gave up and called up a friend who's a real car expert. He chuckled. "Dude, only idiots use gear-shifts. Linux drivers use gear modulating paddles located on the sides of the driverseat. Don't you know anything about cars? Jeez."
I made fun of him for being a virgin and then returned to my car. Indeed, the gear modulation paddles were conveniently hidden under the edges of my seat.
I decided to take the car for a spin, so I pulled out of my driveway and the car stalled. A message on the dashboard said, "Before initializing for road driving, please specify your exact model of Linux car."
It then gave me a list of four hundred vehicle types, each with just a slight difference in model number. I was eventually obliged to take apart a substantial part of the engine in order to see the little model number on the side of the block. Satisfied, I inputted this number into the dashboard once I'd put the engine back together and started off on my first Sunday drive with my brand new Linux car.
Then I found out my car wasn't compatible with my iPod so I put the fucking thing up on cinderblocks in my front yard and took the bus.
The bus sucks, true, but you know what? It's a no-brainer.
These stories are free but worth money.
A remedy to this problem could be to setup a vmware machine and install photoshop on that if she was so adamant for it. It's stories like these that really bring me down in hopes of trying to get others away from using windows.
The REAL difference between Windows and Linux is where users place the blame. If a piece of hardware fails under Windows then they blame the cheap-ass hardware.
When the exact same cheap-ass hardware fails under Linux they blame the OS instead.
Don't ask me why it's that way, but you know I'm right.
No sig today...
I actually didn't intend for my NTFS experience to be my gripe... It was just a specific example of the sort of thing I've encountered when trying to do things with Linux.
I run Linux because it lets me do things I want to do. There are enough people like me out there to provide a critical mass of contributors, so it's always improving. Ten years ago, it took me three days to a week to get the right combination of kernel patches and hardware to get some particular function operating, nowadays it's more like 15 minutes to an hour.
Is this still intimidating for grandma? Sure is. Who cares? Ford doesn't make the F250 (heavy pickup truck) in the hopes that the average user wants to drive it. Analysts don't come out complaining about it because the average driver doesn't want it.
It doesn't even matter if Linux grows faster than Windows (or MacOS X). All that matters is that Linux grows fast enough to sustain the interest of people developing for Linux. BTW, very very few of those developers are doing it because they want to depose Windows. They're doing it because they like doing it.
There's the problem: you newbies tried to build your own machine. Whoops! Did you purchase a copy of XP, or were you (much more likely) booting off of an older box's OEM XP CD? Also, next time get an Intel chipset, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but AMD is junk.
I used to be a Windows programmer (Borland mainly), dabbling with Linux in my free time. Now I am a fulltime Linux programmer and that's a lot harder. some of the issues:
/dev and hope it works. This gets awkward for more advanced stuff like data bits, answer tone duration, flow control data compression. Just knowing what node in /dev is the modem would also be nice.
- No realy nice IDEs. Kdevelop is the best I can find, Eclipse might be nice if I was a Java programmer. I could talk about editors, debuggers, refactoring tools, software packaging, profiling, distributing, designing, etc. separately, but I would like those to work together.
- No nice hardware abstraction. My topic is modems, on Windows there is an API where you can tell modem3 to "call +31 123456789", on Linux you need to send "ATDT +31 123456789" to some
- Limited support as a gaming platform. Yes there is OpenGL, but it's features are limited to Direct3D and it is only about graphics, not sound, input devices, etc. Which are hard because of the lacking hardware abstraction layer. There are other libraries like SDL that provide some of that, but it's not easy to find a solution for everything, be portable and easy to install.
- Myriad build environments (cmake, automake, ant, scons), desktops (KDE, Gnome, Enlightment), browsers (Konqueror, Firefox, Mozilla), Linux distributions (RedHat, SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora), RCSses, etc. Having the effort so fragmented means in most cases that no fully functional tool exists. I'm still looking for a tool to draw my software models. I can find a lot that are kind of o.k., but none can show the difference between lines crossing and lines intersecting (tried OO.org Draw, dot, xfig, inkscape) properly. Choice is good, but I think Linux currently might have to much of it.
Actually as a casual user running SuSE, I'm having less of a hard time, as being a developer. And I can't go and fix all of these by myself, even if they're open source. I find you are less productive as you spend more time selecting, updating and maitaining your toolchain, esp. when working on a lot of different applications, developed by different people, with users on a lot of different distributions and unix flavors.
I think the lack of the above is what makes life harder for the Linux programmers, and therefore harder for Linux to keep up.
RogerWilco the Adventurous Janitor
People aren't going to all of a sudden evolve the ability to troubleshoot a hacked driver for a wireless card, or compile their own printer drivers. The problem with linux is it isn't made for the general (read: ignorant & generally impatient) public. On a side note, this is only really a problem if the goal is widespread home use. Linux's inherent uber-configurable nature is perfect for what people currently use it for.
Saying the World is not ready for Linux is like saying Toddlers aren't ready for rebuilding car engines.
This is my opinion, but the One Laptop Per Child Project is making a good fight. Soon we will have a full system that is Linux compatible down to the core of the hardware. I am continually amazed at the boundries that they are breaking. The project may not be totally open right now, but they are feeding back their improvements back to the open source community. One thing that is stronger in my view is the information sharing between the development groups.
I would set more people up with Linux, but I wonder if their printers are supported and I am not good enough to help them with that yet. Also, maybe with AMD buying ATI we can get some more graphic driver support.
Just my $0.02 cents.
The article is a troll, through and through. It says:
Let's face it, for your average home PC user, gaming is pretty important aspect of PC ownership. That's not true in my experience. Most users I know do not spend much time playing PC games that are incompatible with Linux. They may play Minesweeper or Solitare, and plenty of games of those caliber come with KDE and GNOME. They may also play Web-based games, which work in Firefox. But mostly they go on the Internet and couldn't care less about $50 boxed games. $50 boxed games do matter to many users, but that doesn't mean they matter to the "average home PC user."
Walk around any store selling software and see how much Linux-compatible software you can find. Not much. Do the same for the Mac. Not much. Oh, I have a better trick. Open up your Windows package manager and see how much Windows-compatible software you find. Oh wait, Windows doesn't have a package manager.
Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert Who is doing that?
there's an assumption that everyone who uses Linux is an expert is hardware support. Hunh? I installed Ubuntu and Suse on my desktop and I didn't have to know a thing about my hardware. I reinstalled Windows and I had to get drivers from all over the Web.
No, I don't think Linux will ever achieve "world dominance" in rich countries. But the reason is inertia, not the FUD spewed out in this troll.
Penny - plain text accounting
I know this won't get any mod points, but I have some very specific examples of problems with Linux. FYI, I have been a Linux user since 0.99 and have used UNIX on PCs since the mid-1980's. I am a strong supporter of Linux and use it on hundreds of machines, however it still needs a lot of work to be accepted on the desktop and by Joe Sixpack. For example, my sister is very concerned over the direction Vista is taking and with security, viruses, and other Windows problems, but she knows Windows, does not have the time to learn Linux, and would need someone to help her learn Linux if she is to replace it (she is 1000 miles away so it is hard for me to help).
1) Removable media must be mounted/unmounted to work properly
- automounters help, but its not as easy as Windows
2) Fedora's yum update often fails to update properly
3) Setting up mplayer, etc. requires specific technical knowledge
- distos should include a program to "expand" the disto with such
4) Setting up wireless requires technical knowledge
- for example geting windows drivers and ndiswrappers, etc.
5) no 64-bit flash
6) laptop features are not setup out of the box (wireless, suspend, etc.)
7) Linux games lag behind Windows
8) Linux can't run the latest package you got from Best Buy
There's a legion of linux geeks who would like linux to stay just the way it is: geeky and tweaky. There's a certain snob appeal to being able to tame a bucking bronco into a usable linux system. The elitist badge of a linux hax0r will lose its sheen and street cred the day grandma can easily boot up a linux box and do everything a gentoo geek can do. Ubuntu is not terrible far away from this reality and it scares the geeks. They're all huddled up in their tree house, frantically scribbling and posting a "keep out" sign to post on their clubhouse door to try and stave off the hoardes of unclean windoze masses. They don't want their secret toy to be pulled out of their hands and shared with everybody. It's like the time when you'd see someone talking on a cell phone and think, "Wow...now _there's_ someone with clout, hipness and panache" Now every snot-nosed 11 year old in the pasteurized, sleepy suburbs is chatting and texting on one and no one is impressed if you have a cell phone anymore. It will eventually be the same with linux. What will the geeks do then? Switch to Plan 9? :)
Ultimately it's up the the kernel devs to ensure hardware support and it sure would be nice to create a front end utility on a live cd which would autodetect hardware and walk an installer through a scripted and clearly explained process of configuring and compiling the exact kernel you need as opposed to the bloaty "one size fits all" ubuntu approach.
So the major question becomes, why not just get a Mac?
I don't want all the crap that goes over an OS to make it useable by the average secretary, and prevent regular users from seeing a coomand line. if I wanted that, I'd buy windows.
,why should something complicated be dumbed-down for non-experts? The same mentality as TFA is that we should have tools to allow amateurs to do brain-surgery.
The fact that Linux does not have all that extra bloatware is a plus, not a minus as the article is trying to make out.
Honestly
Now when was it that we forgot that the fronteer of computer science in not plug-n-play, dinkytoy, mickey mouse, et al ?
Want to have/create a dinkytoy linux because windows is soooo much easier ? Buy windows !
The fronteer of computing is, has been, and always will be SCIENCE.
Ever ordered OpenSouce fries with that KFC burger, but noo; there aint no hold gettin' of that recipe ?
There still is a line drawn in the sand that defines the boys from the men in computing, and that line is draw with Open Source & Linux ( read: non-windows ) initiatives. Windows is for users, and sometimes we all are users, but when it comes to real computing we put out the big iron.
Nobody wants to eat @KFC everyday anyhow, and those who do are obese users; fat, as in not lean users. Ask anyone who owns a mac.....
*A pentium 2 with 128 mbs of ram can watch movies under Linux, something that the same PC could not do under Windows.
That may well be. It's also pretty damned irrelevant. If someone's primary computer is a Pentium 2 with 128 mbs of ram, then they probably don't care enough about computers to WANT to watch movies on their computer. It's also worth mentioning that AFAIK it's illegal to watch [encrypted] DVDs on Linux since there isn't a legal decoder. I don't really count that against Linux, though, so much as against the MPAA.
*You have more area to work with (workspaces)
I'm not going to outright discount this-- I used to think tabs were the stupidest thing ever (would typically keep open dozens of browser windows), but I forced myself to use them for a week and never looked back. That said, I personally don't see how workspaces are helpful and actually think I'd find trying to use them very... disorienting. I have no problem alt+tabbing between a bunch of different windows.
*and more free memory.
Much like the whole playing movies on a pentium 2 thing, this is totally irrelevant. There are two situations that a user might need lots of memory (not counting servers and such): Editing large media files (huge pictures or something) and playing the more power-intensive games. If you're going to be editing large media files regularly, you're probably a professional and will have a kickass system which makes the difference between Linux and Windows negligible. If you're playing games... well... do you REALLY want to compare gaming experiences on Linux and Windows? Thought not.
*And you can customize to your liking.
I've got to agree with you on this. This is a solid plus for Linux over Windows. While it is possible to customize Windows, it requires a lot of effort and programs which often aren't free. That said, I'm a huge fan of the Windows scheme (sharp corners, muted gray window backgrounds, white form elements, etc) and so this isn't really a big deal for me. YMMV.
Another reason is that people are lazy. I consider myself to be an above average computer user. I'm been using Windows my whole life and I tried Linux. The problem is with dual-boot. I am able to boot into either Windows or Linux. Initially it was pretty fun using Linux and figuring things out. However as time passed, I found myself booting into Windows more and more until that Linux partition was just taking up space on my hard disk. In the end, I uninstalled Linux. This cycle happened about three times. Now I'm rather determined (since I'm studying CS now)to about being proficient in *nix and I have accquired a laptop. With the laptop, it would be easier for me to play around on my desktop and look for solutions on my laptop, and should my desktop break, I've another computer to use. Guess this is the part where the article said that users want a usable computer at all time.
Stop asuming that everybody who uses Windows knows how to install Windows with all the extra's that come with it. If I were able to put together a PC with specific hardware, I would also be able to make a distribution specific for that machine. Put it in and it will install.
The way I would do it is described here Especialy editing the YaST installation procedure will probably take some time to figure out, but it is not impossible.
That is how most people 'install' their system when they need to. They have a recovery disc that does all the work specificaly for their machine.
Now give joe sixpack an empty PC, a Windows CD/DVD and ask him to install a machine suitable for the office. So printing, office applications, browser, email and such.
If you want to compare, do it on the same basis, so either both machines are pre-installed or neither one is pre-installed. Also people normaly have much more experience with Windows. That means they have had some basic training at least. Look for people who have never worked with a PC and ask them to install Windows and Linux and see what is better.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Ok, I know I'm going to get flamed to all hell for this; but, it needs to be said.
http://www.getautomatix.com/
There, I did it, commence with the flames.
I'll address a few of them preemptively:
No, it doesn't use force-yes.
No, you won't learn how to manually configure your box if you use this, nor will you really know what was done.
Hint: 99% of users don't CARE, or WANT to do/know these things
The Ubuntu forums are the best community support I've ever seen.
System + Ubuntu + Automatix = Box that does more than your average home system, with an intuitive GUI that is in most ways identical to Windows.
It's not for geeks, but hey, if the world was all geeks we'd already be running Linux everywhere.
"By the time they had diminished from 50 to 8, the other dwarves began to suspect 'Hungry.'" -Gary Larson
You make excellent points. Unfortunately, it isn't a level playing field. I know Windows, I'm comfortable with it, and it's Linux's job to convince me that IT is better if I was ever to switch.
The author clearly stated that it wasn't Linux he was talking about. He stated it was competent. I take that to mean the installation of the OS on a computer. He clearly stated it was the platform. That may not seem a literal term to you but it does to me.
I am not going to reiterate what he's saying. I'm going to say clearly he's talking about the drivers, games, and other software.
If Linux holds a small percentage of the computer user base and windows holds the vast majority both had to get into those positions somehow. Granted, Microsoft acted in an illegal monopolistic way, but they would never have gotten Linux to that same position if they acted in the same way only with Linux as their OS wielding the same ideology as many in the Linux community.
The reason is that too many of you think that smarts and intelligence denotes someone willing to put in the hours to learn and make a Linux box work (most probably from scratch). The answer is that you'll never get people to do that so you need to stop trying. You're a zealot and you need to go make baby carriages so you can give the rest of the world some room to breath and make carriages more cheaply for families near poverty.
Microsoft, albeit with illegal monopolistic practices, did create an OS that everyone can use out of the box. In the vast majority of cases the OS installs with little or no problems and even an 80 year old woman can do it. With the likes of Ubuntu the same could be said. But that's not even the issue.
It is with end-user applications. It is about how easily it is to install a core program. In windows you get your install CD of say Peachtree accounting and everything you need is installed. In Linux to install an equivalent you may need to install a bunch of other dependency related files that you don't have access to. Take a non-internet connected computer and install windows then do the same with Linux. This works. Take that same non-internet connected computer and install an end-user program. Under windows it will work most of the time out of the box. Under Linux it will not work most of the time.
Linux depends on repositories, which most often are maintained by just some Joe that didn't write the programs stored there and may be trying to maintain (to some degree) two or 3 repositories at one time. He has to compile or set up those repositories based on every version of every one of the programs that he maintains for every distro he maintains a repository for.
He can make mistakes on one or more of those programs. He may not have the knowledge or skills to build them all correctly. For each repository and for each version the possible errors grow.
Not only that, he may not have the version you want so you have to go out and find the version yourself and then potentially compile it to run on your system, which will require a lot more knowledge and skill just to get an end-user program working.
The author of that article and many others have said or implied "out of box". That means you can give a customer a box containing the software and when they do the install it works without the need to get other pieces from other places. What would turn the Linux community around would be a mechanism just like the Macintosh OS X where you simply drag an icon and it is installed.
Those of you who are hurt by this idea just need to bite your tongues and if you can't accept it you need to move on to something else. Maybe you could help out with poverty or help with starvation in Africa or you could go and fight terrorism. I'm not disrespecting you. I'm trying to speak from the heart. Those would be more worthy endeavors than trying to get everyone in the world to come up to your standards of smartness and intelligence.
If you can hold people to the same standard as you set for intelligence and smartness then they should be able to hold you to the same standard. For instance, the guy that makes the refrigerators should be able to hold you to the standard tha
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Don't her peers already snicker at her because she's a photo pro who doesn't use a Mac?
Anyway, it's pretty obvious that the way to set up your IT department is with OSX machines facing users -- they get a nice pretty interface with the security of UNIX under the covers and UNIX servers of some description on the back end. Those can be Linux, Solaris, or IBM depending on your budget, reliability needs and personal preference. That gives you a bulletproof infrastructure and your users still don't need to learn a damned thing about UNIX.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I have read a lot of good things and things i don't see as real world examples. Let me explain myself. Windows might be out of the box with a nice GUI, but it comes with basically nothing. You have to purchase almost every application. Linux doesn't. Another point i want to make strong, is that i don't think Linux isn't going to be that much of a difference for an end user who can't change screen resolution or understand how folder hierarchy works. I think Windows just gets to these dummies first than Linux, given the fact that Windows is vastly spread over the world, Linux is kinda more for the geeks, like some one expressed here. So they just start working with Windows in their unusual way of thinking. Let me ask you something. If you tell a child to use something, and let him grow with it, would he want to change it later just because some stupid reason? Or swap it for something else as easy as changing your clothes? I don't think so. Linux i used less because it's not getting there to people before Windows. Some of us just hate malfunctioning and paid software, so we swap over to our OSS. I am most definitely not a Linux expert, and somehow i manage to go around doing things to get what i want out of my Linux system. That thing that hardware is hard to install and stuff, that's not true, at least not to me. Some windows users can't install a freaking video or sound card, they ask some one to do it for them. We are talking about the same thing, the difference is that you use a console, not a wizard.
Building for a shallow grave Must be something else we say Somehow to defend this place
And I quote,
"aren't an asset to the cause."
It's exactly that sort of elitest "if you aren't this smart we don't want you" sort of thinking that will keep microsoft the dominant OS provider no matter how much their products suck.
"Winning" this particular movement or battle or whatever you'd like to call it is going to take a MAJORITY of the people using computers moving to Linux and what you really REALLY need to remember is that by DEFINITION, 50% of those people are below average, AND that a MAJORITY is some number GREATER than 50%.
Someone had proposed a drivers Wiki, I propose a "standard" drivers site & interface that can be used and supported by EVERY distro and that we find a way to make it reachable by the install routine of every distro, as early as possible in the install cycle AND hiding all this complexity from everyone that doesn't care to go and look at it.
It's only by INCLUDING that you win a majority and that means including people like my grandmother who can JUST manage to send email but was (rightfully) proud of herself for getting her new best buy/windows machine plugged in and set up an hour before I arrived to do it for her.
...get a graphic artist to help you. I've got everything running you couldn't get going under FC5. Plus lots, lots more.
* * * * *
A lot of people are afraid of heights. Not me. I'm afraid of widths.
--Stephen Wright
I need to be able to use my VPN client and Microsoft Outlook for work. Show me how I can do that easily and I would use linux for sure.
I ran Linux at home to manage my domain for several years. I had email (Postfix/Cyrus/SA/ClamAV), web (Apache, DAV), ssh, the usual stuff. I eventually ditched it all because I was tired of manually updating everything (since my version of Redhat wasn't supported any more), and upgrading to a new distro is tantamount to re-installing from the ground up, and re-configuring the whole thing because all the files are in slightly different directories now. I won't even go into the frustrations of getting wireless or VPN working (I never did).
Eventually I dropped the whole thing and moved to Google's Hosted Domains. I've never been happier: I don't have to focus all my time updating software, tweaking settings, doing routine maintenance, and generally being an expert in an enormous number of tools. Now I can spend that time with my family instead. Does GHD have all the options (DAV), or as good of Spam filtering as my heavily tweaked Postfix/Postgrey/Amavis/ClamAV/SpamAssassin? Nope. But the trade-off is definitely worth it.
I'm not (as one poster put it) stupid or lazy or ignorant. I've been a professional developer for decades. I learned all the tools and how to configure them. But what an enormous amount of time sunk into it. I'm much happier letting somebody else worry about all that crap now.
The point is that people want solutions to their problems, not operating systems.
The article has some solid points, in fact the entire article is really just a concatenation of issues that have troubled linux as a whole.
But the comments also make some valid points too.
At the core of the whirlwind is will any distro become as viable a choice as Windows or Mac?
As it stands now, not until software support comes to the rescue.
And because no distro has an avenue to effectively lobby software makers to convince them to develop for linux, it stands to reason software support will be a very long way off.
The development model for OSS lacks a cadence of accountability and so new software takes longer than consumers will stand for.
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea
I've had a home PC that runs Windows - started with DOS, then Windows, now WinXP - since I started gaming.
When I read thru the list of requirements for WinVista, I decided enough of this. I'll be switching to console gaming and using Linux for my next laptop when MSFT kills off my WinXP one.
I've got a GameCube, xBox, and PS2, and a preorder in for a Wii. My son has a Mac Mini. Between those, I should be able to play most of the games I care about - but I've had it with the WinVista requirements.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Most non-technical people use their computer mainly for 2 things. Web Browsing and Email.
Email clients have come a long way in linux, and are very competitive with windows alternatives. The web browsing experience, however, falls far short.
Too much effort has to go into getting the browser to support everything needed. Correct me if I'm wrong, but no distribution supports flash, java, and streaming audio/video out of the box in the browser. Why is that? My mom or dad, grandparents, aunts and uncles.. none of them will ever take the time to figure out how to make these things work under a fresh linux install. Yet it's something that all of them are exposed to on the web. (If I had a dollar for every time my mom forwarded me a "funny" flash animation).
Seems to me that the biggest single thing linux could do to appeal to the masses would be to
have a fully functional web browser - complete with flash, java, and mplayer or gxine - included in the distribution.
Just MHO.
http://cubemonkey.net/quotes -- fortune-mod quote generator
This is not a troll. This is a truth. Some of the reasons why things are the way they are have no meaning to someone who just wants something better then windows. He indicated that he did read the man page. It's not obvious to someone new that man uses vi to display the help. He used man, not vi so he would not have had any idea that he could have used Shift-ZZ or q! or whatever. The problem with the basic stuff is it's not fun for the hacker. Doing the mundane things like making the interface nicer for new users isn't fun....it's tedious. There in lies the issue. If it's good enough for the hacker, it doesn't get work. Good enough for the hacker is not good enough for the user.
Gorkman
Over the next 12 months, do you plan to increase the number of Linux systems you run?
:)
* Yes (51%)
* No (29%)
* Already running 100% Linux! (20%)
Total Votes: 2,502
I've already posted I am running 100% Linux. Two friends of mine are also running Ubuntu Dapper and Edgy Eft and they are running 100% Linux. The Edgy Eft live CD performs exceptionally well and the install goes smoothly. Proprietary Hardware/Software installations can get tricky
-CSS stuff for playing/ripping dvds)
-Hauppage Video Capture TV Tuner Cards
but the answers are out on the internet with clearly explained recipes and they do work. The Linux installations for all the distros would be much easier if the Manufacturers making the proprietary hardware/software would be more cooperative with the Linux community. The Linux afficianados already know that if the Windows-Compatible Hardware Manufacturers don't provide Linux Compatible hardware, the Linux users will look to other Linux-Compatible hardware manufacturers, before they buy their next hardware upgrade. There are Linux-Compatible Hardware providers if you didn't know.
http://www.linuxcompatible.org/compatibility.html
And yes there are people who sell Desktops/Laptops/PDA's with Linux pre-installed.
http://www.linux.org/hardware/
FYI the USB, FIREWIRE and USB 2.0 run perfectly on Ubuntu DAPPER Linux and Ubuntu Edgy EFT Linux without any tweaking. My external harddrive, hp3820 printer, and my friend's mp3 player and scanner connected/ran right away without issues. I would assume the other Distros(DEBIAN, MANDRIVA, FEDORA, SLACKWARE, SUSE and the rest) also boot up their Linux smoothly and respect them all. In my opinion Mr. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is spreading FUD on Microsoft's behalf. He says there are too many flavors of Linux to choose from. Just the fact there are many Linux distros out there says a lot about linux being popular and it also says a lot about Linux empowering more people because it is FREE and OPEN-SOURCE. Microsoft is having difficulty competing with something that is being installed for free 0$. Cost for me installing Linux 0$, Cost for my friend 0$, Cost for my other friend 0$.
Recently there was an announcement about a MS and SUSE partnership. This is good news for linux because it will reduce hardware compatibility issues coming from proprietary hardware. My guess this partnership is being done to satisfy the government demand for not being locked into one OS VENDOR and to make the MS/SUSE bid more appealing. If all bodes well, the governments will demand that the bid include the demand the source patches will be spread upstream to the other LINUX DISTRO KERNELS in a timely manner considering the fact that it is all taxpayer money paying for their contracts in the first place. If the MS/SUSE bid wins big government, they need to deliver. If they don't, there is always place for the other Linux DISTROS submitting bids to big government for doing the same thing.
It's all good. Linux lives and no FUD(Fear Uncertainty Doubt) tactics will stop it from thriving and gain the true market share it merits. Of course, credit needs to be given to the GNU Manifesto for providing the spirit to drive all the real synergy behind Linux.
Cheers
I understand completely. I'm really not fond of the GIMP's interface, Photoshop is so much easier to use and seems a lot more powerful (I couldn't even figure out how to draw a box in GIMP?)
Don't even get me started on the 3 days I spent getting what turned out to be a fairly half-finished interface running for converting RAW (CR2) files from Canon cameras. Linux is, basically, not for photography professionals.
This statement from the article betrays a certain ignorance of the author: "There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility - it's what people want."
Whereas Microsoft spends virtually no time on hardware compatibility of any sort. Instead, they largely ignore the problem and make it the responsibility of the individual hardware vendor. Hence the huge variation in the quality of drivers for devices, their stability, and their feature support under Windows (add to that it can be quite tricky to port drivers between the various major revisions of Windows).
That's quite different from the case with Linux, where the kernel developers focus a large amount of time on hardware support. Rather than vendors supplying individual drivers for products, the kernel looks at devices as instances of chipsets and hardware APIs. Driver quality goes through a very predictable cycle of creation, maturation, and stabilization and drivers evolve to a very high standard of quality whose uniformity ought to be the envy of Microsoft.
Linux supports quite a bit of hardware at the OS level, yet Windows does not. It is true that if a new piece of hardware comes out, a driver my not be immediately available, and hardware from hostile vendors might evolve slower, but generally speaking, most hardware "just works" in a way Microsoft has never been able to accomplish. Hardware that may be suspect is easy to characterize: does it say "Designed for Windows" on the box, or is it a niche device? If so, how long has it been on the market? If less than 9 months, Google to see if it has Linux support -- that's basically it.
If however, you want a computer that "allows" you to run certain proprietary software, and rely on the proprietors to give you options, then install windows.
Personally, I like the idea of being limited only by my imagination. Most windows users don't want to be forced into thinking for themselves, so that's their loss. I don't buy into this whole "Linux on the Desktop" crap anyway. windows is rapidly turning into a console, with all those limitations. Fine, just don't expect me to use it.
Easier to install, set up and use than Windows XP. Period.
'Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert.'
That statement alone should be enough to prove that the world IS ready to adopt Linux.
So either install Gimpshop to make The Gimp look like Photoshop, or pay $40, get Crossover office, and install Photoshop the easy way in Linux. Probably the best thing to do is disable a clean install of windows from the internet, set up a FAT32 partition for Windows to Linux transfers, then she can do her Photoshop work in windows and her online work in Ubuntu. I did the same for my daughter, she is 12 and knows that windows is for her games, and Edubuntu is for everything else. Windows is a great operating system as long as it stays unnetworked.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
For most users software falls in four categories: (a) productivity/office; (b) communications; (c) multimedia/gaming; and (d) specialty. Linux does pretty bad in all four categories, with one exception in the communications category: email. The lack of 100% compatibility, not with "standards" but with MS Office and Internet browser software, is a serious hindrance to the adoption of Linux. Moreover, speciality software availability depends on market share and the Linux platform is lagging far behind Windows and MacOS.
None of my two Linux machines, running CentOS and Suse respectivelly, supports my Sony digital camera, my Canon scanner, my Logitech webcam or my Linksys wireless card. One can try putting the blame on vendors but I think that, here again, the problem is with the market share of Linux (or lack thereof) and also with the miriad of Linux distributions available.
One can only dream that one day Linux will benefit from a development and commercial environment such as the one that exists around MS Windows and, to a lesser extend, MacOS X. For now, Linux doesn't sell because it's too deeply burried in unintuitive, undocumented, and unsupported software while it's status quo is heavily defended by armies of evangelists.
A few things I'd like to add to the above:
-Much of the focus of discussions like this one is on what Linux is like compared to Windows, the user experience, how easy it is, etc... But people seem to forget that by trying to put Linux on the desktops of average users they are going up against the 800lb gorilla in the room on its home turf. Look, in average people's minds "Microsoft = Operating System". No reasonable business-type person would agree to go head-on against a company that has most of the market share on *their* turf. Read any business book, you will be told that the path to ruin is to go directly head-on against a well established mega-player.
The only way to go against MS directly is with disruptive technology (the transistor was disruptive technology, Linux is NOT), or a disruptive business model. Linux has a chance with the latter since it is open source etc... But disruptive doesn't mean "good". There needs to be a way to show irrefutably to the average user that open source is way better for them, in an immediate way.
This, by the way, brings up another problem: marketing. Most people don't even know that Linux exists. How do you get in people's heads? It would take huge funds to create a marketing campaign that stands a chance of being noticed. Or maybe leveraging the current user base for some guerilla marketing to the masses, like letters to the editor of local papers commenting on the MS EULA. But is there a project that is trying to do this in a coordinated and effective way?
-Also while geeks are good at troubleshooting, they tend NOT to make the best customer support service agents. I once joined the firefox forum to inquire about the amount of memory the browser was using. I think another user with the same problem on the thread mentioned it might be a memory leak. We were all then lectured on what a memory leak was and was not. We were never able to get a good answer on our actual problem. We were all told "if it's a bug, submit a bug report", which happens to involve reinstalling a fresh copy of FF with some special something or another and then spend time trying to find the "bug" so that it can be replicated. WTF? do I look like a test engineer here? How is that "support"? This episode almost turned me off from FF completely.
Consumers have a valid fear that they won't be able to go down to Circuit Mart, get a digital camera or printer or the like and then be able to bring it home and use it.
/etc/isapnp.conf". The "-c" causes the program to scan existing device assignments and produce a file with recommended settings. Available alternatives are commented out.
/etc/isapnp.conf ) to your satisfaction. When setting up modems, as an example, I usually use the second comm port to standardize dialup scripts etc. Don't forget to save it.
/etc/isapnp.conf". The device should be setup and activated without error messages.
/etc/rc.d/rc.modules file to load the device driver using the memory and interrupt values from the above step.
:-)"
The following says it all. From an article, dated May 2006, explaining how to use plug and play in Linux:
"So.. If you have pnp devices to configure, the steps are:
1. Create a configuration file. Enter "pnpdump -c >
2. Using joe or vi, edit this file (
3. Run the configration program by entering "isapnp
4. If the device requires a driver and you are using loadable modules, edit the
Reboot and it all should come together
source: http://wordwonder.com/lnxpnp.shtml
That's simply way too much to expect a home electronics consumer to take on, especially when compared to the Win/Mac experience where if the peripheral doesn't work immediately they have software on disc that will likely get them up and running.
What is EASY in Linux:
- Installing the OS - unless on bleeding-edge hardware, it's actually easier than installing Windows. Ref: SuSE, (k)Ubuntu, Mandriva, Linspire
- Using office applications, email, etc.
- Connecting digital cameras, MP3 players, and most scanners
- Configuring most older printers
What is a royal pain in the ass in Linux:
- Connecting to PDAs, cellphones (Oh, using a cellphone as a modem is a snap, but to pull photos and contact lists from the phone? Good freaking luck. Even Moto4Lin is a pain in the neck)
- Configuring scanners which require firmware
(developers ought to say "fuck copyright" and include the firmware, or prompt for the Windows driver disc and automate extraction of the firmware, similar to the ndiswrapper install process. Why? First sale doctrine rights apply. You buy the scanner, a commodity good, and not a work for hire, you shouldn't have to hunt all over for fucking firmware that SHOULD BE FLASHED INTO THE DEVICE to begin with. Fuck vendors who go the uber-cheap route)
- Configuring MythTV. Easy if you go with Knoppmyth and have an obsolete motherboard, but if you have a bleeding-edge or even fairly-recent system? Forget about Knoppmyth and have fun hunting down firmware files (see above point regarding scanner firmware)
- Configuring newer printers (Konica Minolta and Kyocera aside; may God bless those companies, they come with incredibly good drivers for Linux), and GOOD LUCK getting full-bleed printouts, even with a commercial print filter solution like turboprint
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Microsoft goes way out of their way to make sure YOUR hardware is compatible with THEIR bank account! True facts dere, yep, uh huh, das rite....
To state the obvious, Linux needs an effort similar to OSX; to provide a GUI shell which encapsulates all the necessary tasks an end user has, bug free and stipulation free. Users are not willing to revert to a command line for ANYTHING. Nothing will have a greater impact on consumer adoption than this. Perhaps Ubuntu/KDE/GNOME are making strides in this area already. In addition to corperate backers pushing/funding vendors to open hardware, these entities have the resources to further push desktop adoption by supporting more standard, cross-platform approaches to game development such as OpenGL, SDL or similar. There simply isn't enough going on in this area. Why aren't we seeing "Open Game Development Studio XYZ" funded by a corperate?
"Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility"
Excuse me? If you call a successful first-time driver install: hardware compatibility, then I think we have a very different point of views here!!!
I have suffered a lot from Windows-out-of-the-box drivers & even vendor-based drivers under Windows, be it Modem, Graphics, CDRW/DVDRW, Digital Camera or what ever the hardware is.
Even at the company one of the guys always complains of the need to always reinstall printer drivers (HP: old & new printers)...
Honestly, I do feel a bit bad that there's isn't much support for Linux by hardware vendors, but those who do, do it well or someone runs an open source project and support that piece of hardware (Kudos to you people!). Later on, the most stable driver is added to distros, assuring an out-of-the-box operation.
P.S.THAT IS what I call hardware compatibility: It either doesn't work or works till the hardware is dead.
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
This article is pure fud. You can tell from the COMPLETE LACK of any SPECIFIC examples. Vague generalizations lacking evidence aren't news...
WHY does the author think HARDWARE EXPERTS are required to install Linux? What makes that necessary? How does he define an "expert"? Are we talking someone who knows that a videocard is responsible for video display, or someone who can build a PC from scratch?
Linux has improved greatly. I'd say the BSDs' autodetection of hardware is still more accurate/reliable, but not by too much anymore. Though the BSDs unfortunately don't include any automatic X11 config tool.
IMHO, Windows is far worse, if you have to download and install drivers yourself...
With Linux/BSD, you only have to know the make or family of the device... All ATI videocards work with one videocard driver... All AC97 cards work with one soundcard driver... etc. And 99% of that info is shown in the normal output during boot-up.
With Windows, you have to know exact model numbers, and you can't determine those without opening things up and looking at the card (unless you just bought it and have the box nearby). And even that can be tricky. I know ATI and Creative are an absolute nightmare, because they use almost identical names between revisions. With Creative, you've got two completely different and incompatible lines of Ensoniq soundcards (Ensoniq branded, and Creative Ensoniq), with extremely similar numbering, and each in vastly different areas, so you won't see the alternative nearby...
I better end it here, before this devolves into a rant on how much I hated my years of managing Windows systems...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I am just starting to use linux, and I am making a dedicated effort to make it work. However, setting up my wireless network card is nothing but pure hell...and its been going on for weeks. Installing drivers in linux is the most painful, horrible computer related experience I have ever had to deal with. In windows, you plug it in, it just works. I tried installing madwifi and I absolutely could not get it to work, even with the make command it still said that I had to set KERNELPATH, which I did. I researched and tried my hardest, but the instructions for installing the wifi driver instructed me to connect to the internet and use the "yum" command to download the driver which wsa impossible, and the help included in SUSE, Red Hat Core and Slackware were all pretty horrible in helping fix this problem. Ubuntu would not even load.
Any operating system that demands people to use a command prompt to install drivers, and then still doesnt want to work is going to lose, period. Beyond that, the file system is extremely confusing compared to windows rather simple and intuitive organizational scheme (hard drives are under mnt and my files are under home?) I think that Red Hat Core is the best one of the lot, but beyond a dedicated bunch of geeks like me I doubt many people are willing to put in the effort to use linux, especially if they only have one computer.
If Joe Average sees two identical computers sitting side by, one with Windows and one with Linux, and likes both of them equally, most likely Joe will buy the Windows machine. If there were a $100 difference, then there would be a greater chance of Joe choosing the Linux system. Even a $50 difference would be enough for some.
Until a retailer has the balls to put a competitively priced Linux box side-by-side with the Windows machines, I don't see lots changing, unfortunately. I also don't see many retailers wanting to make Microsoft mad at them by doing so. It's kind of like paying protection money to the local thugs. No one wants their knees broken.
People also don't know the advantages of Linux over Windows, like no viruses or spy-ware, better and faster updates, better security, etc. Every time Gates and Balmer say, "this is the most secure, reliable OS we've ever put out," I have to laugh. People actually believe that they are better than anyone (not just better than previous releases - speaking of which, each release of Windows better be better than the previous one!). It's because they believe marketing drivel.
In other words she can process batches of images and create contact sheets much faster on Windows but at the expense of dealing with instability and Windows glitches. And, of course, she has me who can troubleshoot her machine win-win for her (free tech support and really fast hardware). If she had a Mac I would not be "fixing" her machine - it would probably just work.
completely agree I use computers for news and videos of people getting hurt I've tried to install several versions of linux and have always run into some sort of problem ie, internet is not automagically set up for me, and I don't know, nor care to know, how to configure that stuff macosxftw
If all of the Windows based customers come to Linux, the product will have changed so much that it wouldn't be what the "current" users want to use. Just like the Mac, Linux is for a niche market of users. Why is it that we want it to change to be the most popular product. Isn't that why Microsoft is bashed?
I've tried Linux twice Red-Hat years ago, I got it to install but it wouldn't mount the CD drive, and I couldn't find a video card that worked right. Ubuntu a few weeks ago, it wouldn't load up, the community board said it was a hardware issue (CD, HD, Ram) I didn't know so I gave up. There were to many possibilities to begin to deal with it. I want to install Linux but don't have the time to work with hardware issues I don't understand. I was excited about Ubuntu because it came with everything I needed on the computer. If I could get a computer with Linux already on it or have a trouble free instillation I would upgrade but I don't have the knowledge or the time to figure it out. If you want to come over and install let me know.
linux should not control the entire world we need even distribution among whats available.. only then can there be competition between all camps, if linux would control it all you'd soon see it staggering to innovate. Someone has to set the mark/bar for all camps to chase it, otherwise it's no game.
A few months ago I was stoked about moving to Linux. The whole free software idea really made sense to me. Open source, coming from the perspective of someone who has been a coder for a number of years, seemed like a fantastic idea for an OS to be based on.
Unfortunately, I found that Linux, despite being told otherwise from here and other sources, is not half as user-friendly as Windows. I didn't much mind, and in fact if I weren't running media center on my main computer right now I'd probably run Linux on that, but I digress.
Windows makes complicated operations simple. It's not the installation of the OS that's easy, or the installation of drivers. Windows makes it easier to get sort of complicated things handled. To give you a for instance, I doubt anyone in my office here at work would be able to setup a samba share to save their life. However, all of the computers here have shared folders sitting on the network with different properties. The people here don't know anything about networking or anything, but with windows, you right click and hit share, and wowwy, shared.
Everything, it seems, in Linux, is designed around the CLI. I understand that it's probably a faster more efficient way to do things once you get used to it, and I understand that most users of Linux don't want hand holding. That's fine, I do understand. But at the same time, you can't blame Windows users for their own plight. If you make an OS for yourselves, don't be surprised when you are the only one using it. Most people haven't seen or heard from a CLI since DOS, and even then they learned what little they had to (if they had to learn anything on computers at all) to get the job done. They see GUI as a step forward, and not a step backward. Anything involving the CLI is going to be "hacking" to them and something that they don't ever see themselves doing. You can fight these notions all you like, but they will not change.
Even the younger generation of computer users doesn't really know how to use a CLI on a consistent basis. People have gotten so used to the hand holding of Windows that they wouldn't be able to work without it. So, the way I see it is: stop requiring CLI use for anything but the most advanced features if you want mainstream users. Allow fixing of just about any kind of problem from the GUI. Believe it or not, this can actually be efficient too. I certainly find it easier to check checkboxes than to look through a list of command line switches, but maybe that's just a personal preference.
You can't have your cake and eat it too, if you want new users, especially Windows users, be prepared to cater to their lack of knowledge. Otherwise, don't complain.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
The other day I installed Ubuntu on a SATA drive. Let's see Joe Average try that with Windows.
"Those Windows blue screens, which I've never seen in XP, are more than likely related to third party drivers than they would be to the OS anyway."
Why is it that poor hardware support in Windows is not considered a problem with Windows, but it is with Linux. I have heard this statement many, many times, and it just goes to show that hardware support just isn't up to snuff in Windows. The biggest difference is that MS has succeeded in shifting the blame away from their OS.
I have only been using Linux for the last 6 months or so and I am probbably still on the bottom half of a steep learning curve. It is frustrating at times, I admit, but I like challenges. Why did I switch? Because I'm sick of paying for shit. Microsoft utterly sucks. Take Visual Studio for example. I write a C++ program in visual studio and have it compile on my edition of visual studio but not compile on a newer release! Sometimes it won't compile with the same settings and same version on a different machine! g++ on the other hand is amazing [well g++ and vi ;) ]The issues they have with their OSs is even more impressive. Basically I have a better OS that is far more secure and less prone to viruses and that I can tweak as much as I want as long as I am willing to put in the hours. I have safety, control, and stability for no $$$. It's unfortunate for the people who lack the intelligence but that is simply life. For the ones who simply refuse to learn, well they deserve to get taken advantage of. I am currently running Debian and Kubuntu. Almost anyone should be able to figure out the basics of Kubuntu so you really don't have much of an excuse. There are lots of books and lots of online support for people just getting started. But hey, it's your money, your privacy, your security. You have an alternative. If you get hosed or taken advantage of you have no one to blame but yourself.
Why use a pentium 4? It costs a hell of a lot more then a pentium 2 that can do everything the p4 can do. Also, when you are working on a essay, watching a movie, rendering a 3D animation, and checking your email all at once, you need a fair deal of memory to keep your PC from lagging. Also, for programming it helps to have your text editor and terminal on one workspace, and Firefox with a C++ tutorial page open on another. Not to mention that keeping programs on different workspaces saves memory, because it keeps the computer from having to redraw a window for every program. And for gaming under linux, well.... Computer: 1.4ghz 256 mb ram Running Cube under Windows XP at 640x480 = 10 fps max, constant lags. (Cube is installed on the harddrive) Running Cube under Linux liveCD 640x480 = 120 fps max (Both Linux and Cube are running COMPLETELY IN MEMORY!) The versions of Cube are identical. This is actually what happened, and this is why I converted to Linux.
Believe it or not I've been using Linux on my home and work laptops for 5 years (currently Ubuntu). Linux is great for servers but on my laptop it's a pain in the butt. Not saying it's Linux's fault but that's the way it is. You may have to install windows every few months but once it is installed it just works. You don't have to spend 5 hours in the middle of writing some code to fix the damn wlan card or figure why the computer is going to hibernate every 5 seconds.
I hate to say this but Linux just isn't ready for the world. You love Linux because it's free? Well if it wasn't no one would give shit. They should really pay you to use that shit.
Look at starsucks, their beans are sub par and burnt, but they charge a buttload for a cup of it and peaople go nuts for it.
Wonder why SuSE and RH have good name recogition? they are on store shelves at the local worstbuy.
I think, make it free, like it is now for the people with know-how. Charge 30 or 40 bucks for it to the people that feel comfort in having something out of shrink wrap. Throw in a morons guide to linux and i bet more less technical people jump on it.
No, not a majority amount, but quite a few. Make it up to be the starsucks of OS's and you have a winner.
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
> One note for Linux developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert.'
One note for Windows Apps developers: 'Stop assuming that everyone using Windows (or who wants to use Windows) is a Windows administrator or logged in a such (pretending to be one).
NOTHING pisses me off more than hearing "Well this is built under (dev environment) so you need to run it in (whatever gui.) The big successful desktop OSes are standardized. Don't like some Windows/MacOS piece? Too bad. It hurts that 1/1 millionth of the population that might care, but it provides a CONSISTENT user experience that can be built on for the rest of us.
Don't blame this on the world, the Linux community has the OS they wanted for themselves, not for the public.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Someone grab the De Lorean DMC-12. Reading this headline made me feel like I had returned to the year 1999. Maybe it's just me.
"They are just not given the oppurtunity to be. Companies like Microsoft usually don't try to allow people be smart, in fact its usually the case that these companies develop a business model based around people being ignorant and lazy. "
Like any tool, the purpose of a computer is to make it easier for humans to accomplish something than it would be for them to do it on their own. Laziness is the core motivation for developing tools, there would be no computers without it. If you want to be pure, don't use computers - just use pencil and paper (oops, those are tools too that encourage people to be lazy about doing calculations in their heads).
Okay, assuming for the moment that this article isn't just a peanut being lobbed to Micro$oft in advance of the release of Vista, I agree, linux has its problems. And as others have pointed out, things aren't as easy as they should be. But hell, if you can't get an Ubuntu (I don't use install, and don't particularly like it myself, but it's the best distro for newbies that I've found) install working for you 'out of the box' then you got other problems. Mac OSX and Windoze both can confound newbies, and L^Husers. Hardware issues are often addressed in Linux far more quickly than they are by Micro$oft. I admit that there are problems with gnome, and I don't just mean the fact taht the gnome developers are a bunch of plonkers, and the functionality of some of their core utilities, like totem, which never works properly for me, certainly not as reliably as mplayer. This particular complaint could also be lobbed in the direction of the fedora maintainers though, since they seem to be a little slow keeping up with gnome updates. All in all though, it is getting much better. If you want to send mail (thunderbird) or browse the web (firefox) or write docs or spreadsheets (OO) you're off and running. Rhythmbox, et. al. are great at playing music and managing huge libraries. hardware support is excellent, except for, most notably, nvidia and ati's obstinate refusal to not play ball in the open source ball park, or football pitch, if you prefer. Just being a diehard linux user is enough to get these distros into shape, but it sure as hell doesn't hurt.
Use it and they will come.
And for god's sake, tell them to get an xbox or ps[23] or wii if they want to play games, forget about PC games.
Salut,
Jacques
The VCR is an interesting choice. A problem that was solved because people complained about a legitimate issue. Why should one have to set their clocks in order to tape a program? Because of a technical limitation that was easily solved with better electronics. Now we have PVR's that set their own clocks AND have useful EPGs, instead of the old days of labouriously setting time/date/channel/start/end/length and weither it's reoccuring. BTW why would command-line/batch file scripting not be seen as lazy, but an auto-setting clock would be?
How about having a decent binary interface to the kernel so that the next time I update my kernel, I don't need to update all of my drivers with it? So much time and effort is spent on updating every driver for every version of the kernel, that could be better spent on actually making those drivers better.
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I just recently went from Windows to Linux. I had been using Linux from a Server perspective since 1995, but for the day-to-day workstation where I could not afford to have hardware hassles I didn't want to jump -- until recently when I just got fed up with the required Windows Virus Scanning, especially the real-time stuff.
I decided on Ubuntu, backed up all of my data, and switched. I didn't need to configure much from a hardware perspective on my Inspiron 9300, and the networking profiles is a step ahead of Windows, especially for the traveller.
From an authoring perspective, I think the thing I miss most is Visio (OO Draw and Dia don't come anywhere close). OpenOffice takes care of the rest.
Boot time is incredibly fast, I love that part. VMWare Workstation is now available on Linux, and it works faster than its Windows counterpart.
Honestly, I think that Ubuntu, or Ubuntu-style distributions, are ready for the desktop. My wife is a business analyst at a major retailer, she has no knowledge of Linux details, and she gets around the distro quite easily.
From an installation perspective in the Enterprise -- users don't install OS's, and don't approve hardware. In fact, most corporate policies are against hardware adds/mods.
ati driver and 3d support: opengl and smartgart agp acceleration are not enabled out of the box. anyone that wants to play games on it has to spend anywhere from 2 hours to 2 weeks getting 3d hardware acceleration going. What a joke..
I have converted a few people, I just dont tell them its linux
Ubuntu 6.10 plus CrossoverOffice is almost perfect! So many web resources it can be a great solution for even the most novice user.
Even my mom understands it and she is mentally ill
When you're working with a massive number of people, you are going to get people with odd configurations or trying to install some software, that isn't easy. So you instantly get from this, "click this button to install" to "jump into the command line and do X" or "Go to IRC and ask on #ProgramX_Help and maybe someone will help you out!".
The instant your average desktop user sees an error message that talks about "compiling" or is just some text in a command-line window, they're going to go running back to what they know best
-- jchenx
and I don't use it because I've got one computer that I don't feel like turning in to a paperweight for a few days while I try to figure it out. It's more caution than fear. If/When I have a second computer I'll probably switch the older one to Linux to mess around with it. At least that way when I get pissed off with it I can let it out a little with a game on the other computer =).
"The one area of [Windows] ownership and use where it becomes apparent that there's an assumption that everyone who uses [Windows] is an expert is hardware support."
Not really, of course. That's why Geeks Squad rakes it in.
Linux needs a visible, nation-wide Penguin Squad.
Same difference.
You proudly announce your "victory" on a thread about including more people. Now tell us again, why aren't more people using Linux? Go look in the mirror.
That's like making fun of someone who is practicing the piano by saying,"Why bother to learn to play the piano when you can just put a CD of whatever music you want to listen to in a player?"
Now, plenty of people can and do learn how to play the piano. You don't have to be especially gifted to do so. You do have to be interested in learning and practicing music, though.
Now, for it to make sense for you to have a piano in your house, you don't personally have to be interested in learning how to play it. Other family members might want to play it, or you might have people over for dinner ocassionaly who like to play it, entertaining the rest of you in the process.
I think you underestimate the how much people who just want to do email and web surfing reply on programmers in the family or in their circle of friends to maintain their windows installations.
The person who just wants to surf probably wouldn't care if they were using windows or linux at this point as long as other people are mainting the installation for them. And windows is not so easy to administer that such people don't wind up getting help from family/friends.
I've helped out many friends and family with windows (and its "fabulous hardware support.")
I agree, and I think most Linux folks would agree as well, that hardware support is important and is a priority, but blaming Linux for its lack of hardware support is just retarded.
Linux, unlike Microsoft, doesn't always have access to specs. They can't support hardware that they can't reverse engineer. They will always be behind the curve. But to blame Linux because hardware manufacturers don't write drivers for the platform and don't' release specs for Linux developers to write drivers for them is to misplace the blame.
Could Linux make it easier to write drivers? Sure, in some ways. But in the end, the blame falls squarely on the hardware manufacturers. This is why you should thank those few manufacturers who take the time and effort to offer support to our platform of choice.
But don't take potshots at Linux for something totally out of its control. It's either ignorant or disingenuous---and either way has no place in real journalism.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
OK, the summary's mention of hardware support is just flamebait. When I formatted my pc and installed windows I had to install 30 drivers from their respective CDs, when I installed Ubuntu everything ran out of the box, with the exception of maybe my TV tuner, which I didn't bother with (it might have worked, though).
So, what's all this about no hardware support? Linux has better hardware support out of the box, but Windows has better 3rd party support for new hardware (since 3rd parties don't support linux...).
Send email from the afterlife! Write your e-will at Dead Man's Switch.
But *nix geeks don't want to solve them; they want to continue to lazily assume that everybody is a Linux expert
Yes, UNIX geeks only care about unimportant stuff like making sure you can log on to your online banking service without your login going to a third party at some random location.
Let's get real. Windows is causing major harm because people don't want to think. It's the Wal-Mart syndrome. Buy from Wal-Mart, support a social disease. Sure, you can get cheap junk, but at the end of the day, that's all you've got: Cheap junk, plus you've contributed to a serious economic problem.
Most people (Americans?) seem not to realise that their actions and addiction to ignorance and pointless indulgences are shaping a fucking disastrous future.
you had me at #!
Yep, the problem is those lazy linux developers. It's not that hardware companies don't write drivers (or provide documentation or NDA's that would allow it). It's not that in some cases the only "support" some hardware makers provide requires giving up the one thing (liberal licensing) that brought many of us into linux and that is one if its greatest competitive advantages.
Nope, it's just those darned lazy developers who won't get off their butts and reverse engineer every piece of PC hardware in the world the moment it comes out.
But thanks to your tireless efforts informing them of this problem, a problem I'm sure no one else has ever brought up before, I'm sure that now they'll get right to it.
...for just my media server rig, but still, I moved to Ubuntu. I'm not an expert, in fact I'm a newbie to Linux, but after living with my brother, who now graduates with a Masters in CompSci, some things have rubbed off.
My first install gave me some trouble, as I had a black screen where the login prompt used to be. Right then and there, the average user would freak out. I mean, it just goes BLACK. In fact, I even freaked out a bit until I blindly typed my login/pass and heard the HDD grind like it got a result it wanted.
After fixing it using some generic drivers, I went on and started installing packages wildly. Naturally, when you do something like that, eventually I ran into some dependency issues. Again: Average user will see that and go "WTF?!" I still to this day wasn't sure how to fix what was wrong, because all the so-called "help" pretty much assumed that I knew the ins and outs of Linux, which I don't.
It has nothing to do with smart or stupid. I'd like to think of myself as a fairly intelligent guy - I'm in college getting my edumacation in media production - but I simply don't speak the language. I mean, throw me in Kabul, and I won't even be able to ask for a drink of water without making cave man signals going "Urrrgh!" Does that mean I'm stupid? Well, if I actually do grunt, maybe.
The "just work" mentality isn't a bad one. The average person doesn't want to have to worry about damaging their system because the software they installed started a chain reaction. I ended up reinstalling Ubuntu and starting from scratch and just being more mindful. But I have at least a rudimentary background in how operating systems work, so I don't freak out about it. People who aren't as well-versed in that sort of thing may freak out because they simply don't know what's going on, and the unknown is the greatest fear of all.
These aren't stupid people (not all of them), and to assume so just because they don't understand the back-end of an OS they've never used before might just be why some people think Linux users are assholes - because the most vocal ones usually are.
How do you figure that?
I was intending to moderate here, but have been insired to rant instead.
RANT...
What do you think "Linux" is? What I don't understand is why article writers tread over the same ground again and again and again...
I do know - its got to be cheap copy.
To answer the question I asked above - Linux is a free Unix style kernel, developed co-operatively. It does not "compete" with Microsoft Windows. Because of its licensing, companies can take this kernel, and sell it, either alone, or combined with other products.
If "Linux" actually competes with Microsoft, I would be very worried about Microsoft. Redhat, Novell, etc. can compete with Microsoft. Which makes the events of earlier in the week (Microsoft supporting Novell) interesting.
Is the "average end user" concerned with Linux? Why would she be?
I typically tell people - You will know both when and why, if you are interested in using Linux. If you don't know, then it really doesn't matter; if Windows works for you, use it (after all, you paid for it).
As to "hardware support" -- the Linux kernel supports MUCH more hardware than the Windows kernel. Do you want to put it to the test? Linux supports most network, sound, USB, etc. SATA, IDE, etc. adaptors, Without a single external driver needed. No "binary downloads", no "driver building", no hassles. My classic example is the QIC Travan 1 drive I use for "permanent" backup. I don't trust most CD or DVD writable media, and prefer to use QIC tapes for project backup. Supported "out of the box" by the Linux kernel. Windows XP support? I have yet to find it. Even though the drives were orginally sold as "DOS/Windows ONLY".
And, I DON'T trust a binary-only USB 2 driver that comes with a mainboard from a no-name manufacturer in Taiwan. I much prefer to have a source reviewed driver in the kernel.
I think that "Linux users" break into several camps -- (1) those that know why they have chosen Linux, (2) those that just want to "play", (3) those that are "forced" to use it.
Camp (3) includes embedded applications (ATI chip based TVs, TiVOs, etc.), and locked down desktops, and servers.
People who just want to "play" are going to be fickle anyway, by definition. Encourage them to use Windows; unlike the first camp, they are unlikely to contribute to the commons, and giving them "free support" drains valuable resources.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Is this trash all companies day?!
I use GoDaddy, and they are excellent. Extremely low cost, fast and responsive customer service, ethical and intelligent founder and leader, their web site gives you almost complete control of your DNS (if you use their DNS servers - that is FREE with their domains), and many more things I can't think of off the top of my head.
Would you rather pay $35/year for less?
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
The handwriting is on the wall. If the current Linux world doesn't come together and do it then Microsoft will do it for them and reap the benefits and treasures. Come together folks, before it's too late.
Because RedHat wouldn't install properly. It would install, just not fully. "Pick another distro" remains the most efficient and reliable way to fix install problems with Linux. I can't remember now exactly what functinoality was missing. I don't care. I'm not computer illiterate. I write software for a living. I *don't* install Linux for a living. I wiped RedHat and installed Ubuntu. It still has some issues, but it's useable as a box for testing software and porting it to Linux (the software that has to be ported is all CLI, so the desktop is not a problem, IIRC, that's where most of the problems are).
We all know that when it comes to PCs, the majority of people like theirs to "just work" and pretty much no matter what hardware they get, with windows, it does. The thing is, this isn't by chance. Companies make new hardware and what do they do if they want to pitch it at the consumer market ? Make sure it works with windows. When it comes to the alternative O/S market, it's nearly always through lobbying for documentation and then rolling their own drivers or even reverse-engineering work of the O/S developers that finally makes a piece of hardware work. If you buy/happen to have the supported hardware it does just work, on any platform. The difference is, on windows that hardware is all of it.
The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat." Lily Tomlin
First of all, I don't know where many Linux users get the preconceived notion that knowing Linux or UNIX makes the user any more knowledgeable in computing than someone that knows Windows! Knowledge of how to work around Linux means that one can work around an operating system, which is just as easy to acquire when using Windows! I've talked to people who can work around almost any problem in Linux, BSD, or Unix but cannot solve a relatively simple issue in Windows!
I don't think that Linux will ever get the desktop popularity as many people hope. I don't think that's part of the mission of GNU/Linux. It was created as an alternative, not a replacement to, mainstream operating systems of the time. Having multiple distributions, multiple window managers, and so forth, I believe, is part of the nature that makes Linux what it is. To remove all of that, in my opinion, would make Linux nothing more than a Windows-like operating system with a different mask.
Plus, on a home desktop environment, what advantages would Linux have over Windows (other than price, which is starting to change on the Linux front too)? I'm sure the first thing to come to mind is security, but do you not think that a properly configured Windows-based PC with a good antivirus (AVG, for instance) and spyware protection has good enough protection from the outside? I mean, without the security advantage that makes Linux/UNIX popular on the server front, I really do not see any more benefits that Linux can give to an average user. Even for someone like me who has been computing for a while, I do not really benefit much from running Linux over Windows (I get OpenOffice, which is on Windows, TeX frontends which is on Windows, IDEs which are also on Windows, etc).
Then again, I'm no developer, so I could be wrong. If so, correct me then.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
I just paid 35 bucks to have Solaris Enterprise System (a 10 cd box set) sent to me. I am dumbfounded at all the software SUN has sent me for 1/50 the price of a M$DN subscription. I now have both and run full systems on hypervisors. I am happier than a pig in stink.
OpenSolaris, StarOffice, Sun Java Enterprise System (Access Manager, Application Server, Calendar Server,....), Sun Studio 11, Sun Java Studio Creator, Sun Java Studio Enterprise 8, NetBeans 5.0, Sun Cluster Geographic Edition, Identity Manager... THIS IS SO PARTIAL A LIST OF THE STUFF YOU GET.
All the mentioned above with very good documentation (pdf)in one location. Who needs Linux? I need FreeBSD but I don't need Linux!
Linuxes!?! We need no stinkin' Linuxes
I couldn't even figure out how to draw a box in GIMP
Simple. Select a box, then edit->stroke selection. Lines are harder- I think they require the shift or ctrl key.
The problem is not that GIMP is difficult to use- it and Photoshop are just different. When you consistently use one, the other seems awkward. I've gotten used to the GIMP and can draw pretty much anything I want with it. Maybe at some point I'll even put up a page for it.
However, assuming that a seasoned Photoshop pro is just going to switch to the GIMP is utterly naive.
As for the capabilities of GIMP, I've dug pretty deep but for sure the limiting factor so far is still me, not the program. I find the Photoshop tutorials (and worth1000.com) very worthwhile to study though, most techniques map pretty well to the GIMP.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
Ubuntu definitely allows dual boot. It has a partitioner in the installation. With Linux, you don't usually use NTFS, you'd use ext2 or ext3 or ext4 which have this nice non-fragmenting feature. If you need Windows to be able to read it, that's an exception, not the rule, which is why write-support for NTFS requires installing an extra component. Ubuntu's nice because most stuff doesn't require the command line, and copy and paste works fine for entering commands into the terminal. If you want to learn to use the command line, there's a book called the Linux Phrasebook that has it all (with nice explanations) in there.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
"The ultimate test for me, and one that I ask people going into linux is: "yeah ok, but just try to print a file." I gave up on this more than once due to time constraints, but I'm sure it can be done."
Print a file -- Fedora Core 5 (no particular reason, I am sitting at a Fedora Core 5 workstation now). And, I don't think you mean "print a file"; I have translated to "set up a printer".
Goal: Print to a Windows XP shared HP 3015 printer, from Fedora Core 5
Steps: (Click or enter data) -- annotated here
Click: System/Administration/Printing -- Printer Administration
Enter: Enter root password to dialog -- This is priviledged
Click: New -- Want a new printer
Click: Forward -- Wizard dialog
Enter: Name: printer -- Name the new printer
Click: Select Queue Type: Networked Windows -- Its networked, on the XP box
Click: WORKGROUP -- Workgroup name
Click: TRITON -- XP machine name
Click: lj-pcl5e -- name of printer on XP box
Click: Generic -- general driver class
Click: PCL 5e -- specific driver
Click: Finish -- We are done
Click: Print Test Page: Yes -- generally, good to test it
Click: Default -- This is the default printer
Click: X (Close) -- Done
Click: Save (changes) -- Yes, save the changes
Print in OpenOffice, Firefox, etc. will work.
And how is this the acid test of Linux? The only thing that is different from XP is that the printer driver itself isn't downloaded automagically.
Ratboy
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
Pick a well-known Linux app. Any will do. Imagine you're one of the main developers for it, and someone comes along and releases a "desktop-ready" Linux distro with your app in it. You're now one of two dozen people that has to deal with unpaid support requests for one hundred million lusers who won't ever RTFM, and who will more often than not tell you to fuck yourself if you even suggest they go read the instructions. You're now stuck with that forever, unless you're willing to destroy your current online identity and start over anonymous.
MS propaganda won't kill Linux and neither will litigation. The 500 mile high tsunami of bullshit the article author is demanding is what will kill it.
Just last night, I picked up three Airlink gigabit ethernet PCI cards, two for windows machines and one for a linux server. The box said it was OSx, Windows and Linux compatible, so I figured why not (plus they were $6.99 each.)
/renew (a reboot would have worked as well, I'm certain.)
/etc/network/interfaces to disable my old card and enable the new one, and reboot (/etc/init.d/networking restart didn't take care of my mail service, and didn't want to bother hunting it down.
/etc/network/interfaces. If I didn't, it would have been an all-night project looking up information online.
Installing them in the Windows boxes entailed installation of a driver, which windows went online and picked up automatically. I then had to disable the old built-in ethernet device, and do an ipconfig
Instalilng one in the Linux box (Debian Sarge) required no driver, but I had to view dmesg to see that is was being set up as eth2, modify
So yeah, Linux was harder, but only slightly. Here's the problem, though; I knew to go look in dmesg, and what eth0/eth2 means, and how to edit
That right there is the part that makes this hard for non-Linux users to convert; it's the amount of research they have to do, and the lack of confidence they have to do it.
The hardware argument is bollocks. I've had problems as (more) often with XP as Linux. Even when I am having to use XP because device blah apparently works with it.
The only real reasons for the inertia keeping people on Windows is laziness, it takes effort to do things another way and fear of the unknown. It doesn't matter what people are dealing with the sheep like masses don't break ranks easily when it means stepping into the unknown. They don't know the implications of moving from Windows, will this work, can they do that still etc.... so they don't move.
Gimpshop is neat, but still not there for me to use for my work as a photographer. I need color management, better RAW conversion, and the single biggest blocker for me 16-bit per channel support. Until I have those I cannot even consider converting. There is a longer list of nice to haves that I would like to see as well.
Also if you look at the codeweavers site, you will see that the only version of Photoshop that is reported to be working is 7. That is two major releases back. I would be willing to fall back to CS (Photoshop 8, CS2 is Photoshop 9), but there is no way I would go back to 7 (even if I knew where that CD was).
What do you know I wrote a novel
I'm late to reply, so I won't get modded, but maybe somebody notices.
Linux is not the desktop OS of choice because Linux was not envisioned as such.
Linux is a multi-tool, a swiss-army knife, it a tool "for geek, by geeks". Linux is not the Desktop tool of choice because it was never designed to be. Trying to make Linux into a Desktop tool is classic case of square peg, round hole.
Mac is a great desktop b/c Mac wants to be a great desktop. The major Linux distros do not have such aspirations.
Don't get me wrong, Linux could be a great desktop, but I don't see any push to make it so. Everything in computing is give and take. MS and Apple make specific decision so that they can focus the results. Linux specifically makes multiple decisions (file systems, window managers) and subsequently loses focus. That's OK, that's the purpose of Linux, it's the great multi-tool. But that simply won't fly on the Desktop, things need to be cut, otherwise it's just too expensive.
Until somebody with Vision picks up a distro and makes all of the tough decisions involved in becoming a Desktop, then the world will simply not be ready for Linux.
I tried switching the computers in my parents Office to linux. No dice.
I only had installed Linux once before to try out the Quake 3 Linux test, Suse 6 or 7 it was back then. Took me two days back then to get it running (figuring out the xserver stuff, finding working Voodoo2 drivers, etc.).
So I loaded Suse 10 Enterprise and installed it into a VM to give it a whirl. I was amazed at how easy it was and how much better the interface was than that of Windows XP.
But then there was the showstopper. I could not find a single driver for my parents scanner, printer and PDA. So Windows it will be. Plain and simple.
There may be some valid points here (e.g. hardware for which only MS Windows drivers are available, is a big one) but the point about expertise is ludicrous. Microsoft Windows, according to many people, is something that the world is ready for, and using Windows requires far more expertise than using Linux.
For example, the people at Microsoft who designed Internet Explorer, Word, Excel, and Outlook assume that users know they should never, ever open a document (a spreadsheet, a web page, an email, whatever) without verifying (probably cryptographically) that it is from who from you think it is from, and that they are on a whitelist of known non-hostile people who won't try to trick you into running malware. The problem is, only nerds actually know that they need to do that, and how to do it! 99% of the population is unqualified to use Windows safely on a network; the product was designed for more expertise than most people have. Contrast that to most Linux applications, where the very idea of executing what appears to be "static content" is foreign (it really is static content), so expertise in computer security just isn't necessary.
Using Linux (as opposed to installing it) requires less expertise than a widespread system that is often talked about as "ready." Therefore, either the article is wrong about Linux not being ready, or else the need of expertise on the part of users, simple isn't a serious factor in readiness.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
If you are a Linux user (like me), then you will be pissed of by Windows because you aren't as productive immediately (because, *gasp*, it's different).
Immediately? How about for ever? The absolute best you can do with Windoze is take Michael Dell's pre-installed packages, which sucks, then things quickly go downhill from there. You will never get a choice of productive GUI's like Gnome, KDE, Enlightenment, etc, that deliver multiple screens and system stability. What would I do without sftp built into my browser, virtual windows and spell checks everywhere? Adding applications to Windoze is a crapshoot, thanks to the way non free programmers are unable to share their effort. A new application can easily wreck everything else you have, not that you have a choice about that. If the Malware makers don't jump something onto your computer, M$ themselves will through auto-updating. The effort required to keep on top of each and every one of your programs and security will make you nuts. All of that and choice are taken for granted in the free softwar world. Once you have a Linux box working, it will always work and new programs and upgrades are effortless.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Thanks for the info,I didn't know that only 7 was working. Everyone I know that does professional photo editing uses a Mac anyway,so they would never need Linux.
Star Trek, there maybe hope.
Eventually she might switch to using a Mac. Then I won't need to "fix" her machine anymore. But at this time she wants the fastest hardware for the lowest price (even at the expense of having deal with freezes and needing an antivirus suite running). One could also argue that the time spent fiddling with the drivers and cleaning out spyware is more expensive over time than the upfront cost of a Mac.
Yes, because in Linux, everyone would check file permission before double clicking on them (assuming one of the desktop environments that allow you to open or execute files by double clicking). Not everyone use the command line :)
I'm so sick of this kind of BS. Anyone that uses Both windows and Linux on a regular basis knows that windows is a much bigger pain to use, and especially to install new hardware into. I use Mandriva, Suse and sometimes Ubuntu and each time I've added a chunk of hardware for the last few years - I plug it in and Linux just loads the appropriate driver and I'm running. Windows on the other hand normally requires a driver load which usually borks the whole system, requires searching the internet, downloads, reboots, blue screens, installs and general hosing around. For example, A recent install of a bluetooth dongle made my XP laptop so unstable (with current drivers and two days of messing around) that I restored to a previous point before I tried to install and gave up. I went to my Mandriva box and plugged it into the USB port. 20 seconds later I had a bluetooth enabled box. That was it!
I also hate the windows GUI. After using KDE and getting used to multiple desktops, simple clipboards (with a history), FREE, usable, widgets on the panel - nice touches like clicking the clock gets you a calendar etc. Windows is clunky, slow and fragile. It sucks.
The media - especially the tech media for crisakes - should stop propagating this FUD.
"Smile, listen, agree, and then do whatever the fuck you wanted to do anyway." ~Robert Downey Jr.
Isn't that backwards? Shouldn't it be Why Linux is Not Ready for the World?
Because, as much as I've used Linux and understand it, it's not ready for primetime.
Sure you've got some great apps, but usability wise, it's far from it.
Yes, I'm a Windows user, but I also hail from the console days of DOS and Unix.
As a Sys Admin, I used HP-UX exclusively, and found it less troublesome than Gnome or KDE.
One of the things I hate about Windows is the finite customizing you can do to the desktop w/o relying on 3rd party apps (FlyakiteOS and etc...).
However, it's also real easy to use (and break if you don't know anything) because they throw a few things at you and you pick a method that works. On Linux you've got 200 different ways of doing something and only about 1 or 2 paths that work inconsistently, before you end up switching again and again and again.
Sometimes I get so frustrated working with the GUI, I go command-line, and even then it doesn't work right, because the MAN page is worth shit.
If you want a toaster, then by a damn toaster. Linux is there for those of us who want to make the bread ourselves, chop down a tree for firewood, bake the bread in our home made oven and toast the bread in front of a real roaring fire.
Mr toaster is lazy, and cooked his toast in 120 seconds. Mine would have taken a few days, but I bet it tastes better.
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
She didn't need a computer. Almost nobody does. She needed, in this order:
a) A way to run PhotoShop, which is critical for her business
b) A way to access and send email, critical for business
c) A way to browse the web, useful for business
d) Possibly a way to play games, et cetera.
It happens to be that a computer is part of a great solution to those problems. A Mac and a Windows PC both nail a-c. Windows is slightly better than OSX at d, but does a little less well in the others if you include "quickly and stably" to the mix. A Linux box, right now, fails at "A". That doesn't mean that its not great, just that its not a great solution to her needs.
Big difference.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Linux is ready for the desktop when you run it on your desktop.
As a number of posters have pointed out, installing windows is a bitch too. However, it's kind of irrelevant - most non-geeks don't install either; they rely on people like us to do it for them. Installation is a one-time thing - it's the day-to-day user experience that matters.
.doc link. It asks her to locate the application to open it with, and wants a file path to the application. She rummages around the file tree for a while before giving up in disgust - she didn't know she needed to look in /opt/OpenOffice.org/program/, and that what she was looking for was called 'swriter'. Weirdly enough. Sure, I can change preferences in firefox for her to fix this particular problem, but being asked what application you want to open a file in is a normal, day to day part of using an OS. I even sat down one day and walked her through the whole /usr, /usr/local/bin, /usr/bin, /sbin, and /opt trees to her, so she'd at least have a rough idea *where* she might find the relevant application next time it happened. Which helped a bit, but it really doesn't help that linux apps are often named differently from what you'd expect - who'd know that acrobat is called acroread without being told, for example?
/Applications, not scattered across 4 or 5 different parts of the file tree with unintuitive names.
My gf is a case in point - she got sick of bad windows behavior, and agreed to let me install suse on her laptop to see if that'd work for her. She liked a lot of things about it (no endless popups and second-guessing by the OS, mainly). However, her real frustration was the file structure and application naming conventions. Case in point: she fires up firefox and clicks on a
She's since moved to a mac, and is delighted to be able to concentrate on her work, instead of wrestling with inanity (windows) or struggling with obtuseness (linux). When she clicks on a link or file and it wants to know what application to open it with , it usually suggests a list of apps, instead of demanding a path. If she really had to go hunting, she knows applications are in
It's this basic usability stuff which makes linux hard to use for the general public, not the installation process.
'Most people really don't care about how all of the internals work. They just want to put the key in the ignition, turn it on, and drive. Is it within most people's ability to do a significant amount of their own maintenance? Yes. Do they? No.'
The most critical thing has been left out of this (frequently-used) analogy. True: most cars are user friendly, as you point out. The API (key-ignition, fuel tank cap) is straightforward and 90% of people go no further into the internals.
But the far more important thing about the closed-source car is that the internals are unknown to *everyone except the manufacturer. Fuel injection or carburetor? Dunno. Does it have a combustion engine, or a hybrid? Dunno. How many volts does the starter need? Dunno.
It's not that the "average user" needs this information to get around town, it's that the average user cannot get maintenance/repair from a free market because the relevant info is under lock and key.
If free software achieved world domination, the best effect would be the freeing of the market, *not any incredible upsurge in functionality or usability.
The free market would cause the incredible upsurges therein.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Most people really don't care about how all of the internals work. They just want to put the key in the ignition, turn it on, and drive. Is it within most people's ability to do a significant amount of their own maintenance? Yes. Do they? No.
I don't know about that, with "modern" or newer cars simple maintainance requires more than just knowledge or ability. I've rebuilt car engines, about the only I couldn't do was to bore cyclinders out so I took them down to a machine shop to have it professionally done. However the car I have now I couldn't change the oil without an expensive one use tool. I wouldn't even try to tuneup the car's engine now.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Let us not forget this part. We all know (I hope) what the diversity did to Unix in general.
/var/opinion also talks about this issue. (http://www.linuxjournal.com/xstatic/abstracts/opi nion)
Nicholas Petreley in Linux Journals
We really have to come together (And there is plenty of other reasons for that too;-)
Oh my, how arrogant does that title sound to me. I'm tired of hearing how about "Linux is ready for the desktop" and "users are too stupid for Linux".
Here, let me fix that title for you:
Why Linux is not ready for the World.
There, I said it. In other words, stop trying to force the users to understand your software, adapt your software to the users expectations. And please no "we'll never innovate if we do things that way", Apple does it just fine. Microsoft too, for that matter (albeit poorly/clumsily at times).
And now, make way for the hurd of Linux and OSS zealots so that they can mod me down, according to their arrogance and total ignorance of real-world users.
My other comments from today tend in this direction, but I'll return.
I agree with a lot of what you say about Linux elitism. It's actually TFA's attitude of condescension that first got under my skin. In no particular order my thoughts on what you said are:
-People are accustomed to having the complexity of computers hidden from them. Keeping a network-connected machine free of malware/etc is *not simple. Turning electromagnetic waves into readable web pages is *not simple
-Linux is better not because it hides complexity better (it doesn't) or because it does more complex things. It is better because nothing is hidden.
-If Linux or any other free OS were the dominant one, there would be an *open *market in a Very Lucrative service industry: "hiding complexity" -- just as there is an open market in car repair because individuals can learn how engines work.
Please not that as manufacturers computerize their cars more and more, this previously-very-open market is closing pretty quickly.
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility -- it's what people want.
Microsoft doesn't spend a lot of time on hardware compatibility, hardware makers spend all the time on hardware compatibility. Linux developers spend far more time on hardware compatibility than Microsoft, because they have to. Microsoft can sit back and let third parties do all the work because they have the market share to do so.
There are two problems with Linux that make it not just work out of the box:
1) It isn't in the box to begin with. Seriously, if people had to install and do basic configuration of Windows, hardly anybody body would use Windows. Have it preinstalled on competitively priced hardware for starters.
2) Hardware support, for all the efforts of scores of developers still falls short in key areas.
Lack of plug n play support for PC Cards for laptops and wireless support have kept me from using ubuntu on my old Dell Laptop. Yes, yes, please thanks in advance for all your suggestions and links to various message boards where people give contradictory and incomplete instructions on how to "get it working". That is precisely my point. Linux users should take a page out of the old Macintosh book. Just tell me whether it works or not, not whether it can be made to work with sufficient tinkering and additional downloads. When I had my old Mac I just knew that some things just didn't have drivers for the Mac, it sucked, but in most cases there were at least some products that filled the gap.
With all the options for free software for linux, it really does just come down to hardware driver support. We don't need everything to just work for Linux... as long as we can fill the gaps and make sure there is an easy solution to every computing need. Take wireless support for instance, I would rather know there is one easy solution to connecting to a wireless network than to have to sort through dozens of webpages which often start with the most round about way of solving the issue.
I thought it was the vendors who worried about compatibility with Microsoft, that they wrote drivers and made sure they would work, not Microsoft the company, whereas with linux, volunteers frequently have to figure things out for themselves, sometimes not even able to get specs from the vendors and so having to reverse engineer. This is changing to some extent. I first noticed this with ethernet cards. I suppose the ethernet hardware guys figured out that a lot of servers were running linux, and it might be good for sales if they were 'linux friendly'.
I'm grousing because the article seems to give Microsoft credit for something they aren't doing, and yes, I've got enough anti-microsoft prejudice that I tend to jump on anything that seems to give Microsoft undeserved credit.
It's the hardware vendors (and game makers) who need to come over to linux to make it more popular. How to get that to happen is the question.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
Actually, you could have picked up the MS Action Pack for $299. Your comparison is so out of whack that it is beyond credibility. I can only chalk your comparison to ignorance.
While $50 dollars isn't bad per se, neither is $299 for all the software you get from MS. Just want to keep it fair.
In all points the author is missing the point. Instead of blaming the OS he should be calling for hardware manufacturers and software developers to write drivers and software for more than just Windows. While the open source community has done a fantastic job of hacking out drivers for their hardware or porting their favorite software, it's the companies who ask us to purchase their hardware that should be doing that work. As linux adoption grows, I believe this will change as we are already seeing some hardware companies releasing drivers for linux with their hardware. As for gaming... the author again fails to realize that game companies have been writing games for their major audience. It's not that Linux can't match or outperform windows at running games, there's just not a lot of game companies going to the work of releasing their games in Linux. Again, as a market grows there, I believe game companies will take advantage of the power of linux for game platforms. They can build games with full access to the power of the box instead of having to deal with the hardware overhead. This author should be educating non-technical audiences instead of spreading the same FUD we hear over and over.
Select the box that you want to draw, and then stroke it. Why should there be separate modes for drawing boxes and for selecting boxes?
Nah. The photo forum I participate on has PC and Mac users, and we get along fine.
My Sysadmin Blog
Damn straight the world isn't ready for Linux; those of us who need an industrial-strength, flexible and reliable operating system are far outnumbered by the mindless hordes of pansies using that candy-ass crap from Redmond to surf the Web, read email or whatnot. Let them have their blue-screens-of-death, their virri and their spyware too. It's as simple as this -- if you can't use Linux, if you can't handle typing a few arcane commands on a keyboard, than you're a wuss, seduced by a Fisher-Price style GUI designed with plenty of rounded corners so you can't hurt yourself while opening a damned wed page. Bah! Who needs a GUI? Who wants to conquer the desktop market? Graphical desktops are for losers. Real men use Linux.
At the end of the day, Linux is a real OS for real men, built by men and used by men who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty with a CLI editing a conf file in vi. Did you think they call them 'man' files because it scores social points with your metrosexual next-door neighbor? I think not. Users who simply must use a mouse -- it's so cute, it's so sleek, it's so easy to hold in my hand! -- need not apply to join the grand Linux minority. I'll give the OS-X users a pass here, because at least you *can* drop down to a real CLI running underneath the hood, but the M$ lovers are just SOL in that regard. I don't ever want to see Linux trying to seduce that crowd. **shudder** No, I really, really don't want that.
Buck-up fellow nerds -- Linux does not need to win the desktop war. If KDE or GNOME ever become truely usable by the idiot masses, we'd soon have to deal with people like the morons who think the CD tray is a coffee cup holder, or the guy who went to a hardware store to get a can of smoke to replace the cloud that poured out of his computer (true story), or the chick who bought a particular system because the color matched her damn drapes (also a true story). Linux does not need these people, and we can keep out the riff-raff out by keeping Linux the way it is; difficult to use without an in-depth knowledge of what lives in /etc, /sbin and /boot, and with a GUI that often fells like an afterthought, a little something to do certain tasks that can't easily be done in a pure text environment (although, if *you* can do graphic image editing in a non-GUI interface, more power to you, but I haven't yet mastered the technique). At least M$ makes a buck whoring themselves out to the masses; as a FOSS operating system, Linux would be a little too cheap and a little too easy for my tastes if the world started beating a path to her door. Overall, I'm deliriously happy that the world is not yet ready for Linux to engage in that kind of wholesale prostitution.
Way to go Linux!
Note that at the end the author states that it is currently a PC-only shop. I think this colors the article a bit.
It has been pointed out in an earlier article that when an average Windows user says "I already know computers," that is actually a misstatement. What the user means is, "I can use the Windows(c) GUI."
I'm becoming more and more convinced that the Joe Sixpack user wants a free clone of everything in the Windows or Mac world. He does NOT want Linux. Maybe users should band together and start a FreeWindows.org project or something, and stop trying to mold the Linux and OSS world into something that it isn't.
I'm not saying that everything the user wants in an operating system cannot be obtained. But who is going to provide it?
These endless "Linux needs," and "ready for the desktop" articles all point the blame to the shiftless, lazy, uncooperative open source software contributors. But what are the users going to contribute? Developers are people, too, with families, responsibilities, and busy schedules.
A guy who used to work for me described it this way: people want a computing appliance.
You're right, of course, but the problem is that computers are not appliances. Appliances are anathema to the whole idea of general-purpose computers, which are supposed to be flexible. You have to have some training to know how to frame a problem in a way that a computer can solve it for you. Bad interfaces aside, I find that many people who run into issues with computers do so because computers are so extremely literal. Most people simply cannot, or refuse to, wrap their minds around a computational task. So yeah, people are stupid and/or lazy. I think the GP is spot-on.
That said, the UNIX philosophy deals with these kinds of problems in an elegant way. You learn small, flexible tools one piece at a time. 'cat' is as useful to a guru as it is to a newbie. I learn new things about 'egrep' every day, and egrep only does one basic task. And with those two tools-- and some other simple ones-- I run circles around the inflexible software designed for the boneheaded network engineers I work with. People who are too lazy to do it right the first time, and empty their pockets looking for an easy solution. Learn the fucking tools, guys! Using your BRAIN is the easy way.
Toasters and cars have rigidly-defined roles. Toasters toast and cars drive (although a previous vehicle of mine toasted as well... long story). The simplest "role" I can think of for a computer is that of a "thinking machine". You need to THINK to use it-- it's a tool for thinking! With some ingenuity, people can make computers that run toaster and cars. That's powerful!
I don't really give a shit if people don't want to use UNIX. I'm happy using it myself. GNOME and KDE help lessen the learning curve for people who are used to GUIs, but if someone wants to learn how to use a real computer, they're going to have to get dirty. "bit twiddling" is how you get dirty.
Because my family never really got into computers until I did ("Hey Dad, after using the high-speed internet at college I'm never going back to dial-up!"), and because of the equipment available to me ("no son, you certainly may NOT delete all the files we have and put on an OS that none of us have ever used"), I never even had a chance to play with Linux until college, and I didn't seize the opportunity until my junior year, 3 years ago.
I dual majored so I didn't have tons of free time to go learn non-class material on my own, but one of my majors was Computer Science, so I learned how to use an already-configured *nix machine, just not how to administer one. But I would periodically try to do it anyways, trying to install about 4 different flavors of Linux on a number of computers in my last year-and-a-half of college. Every single time I had the same problem: a piece of hardware didn't work right. Also every time, I tried finding a solution online or with Linux guru friends, did what they said to do, and found that my computer would refuse to boot after I made the changes. So I would start over, break it again, and repeat a few times before getting frustrated and installing Windows on it, which seemed to Just Plain Work.
I've had two exceptions to this, where I can boot them and use them for regular tasks without getting any ugly errors. I just wish I knew how to lock them down properly. One success story boots into Solaris 10/W2k Server and runs a web server if I want it to, and the other (the one that I'm using to typing this post) dual boots into Fedora 5 and XP. The only problem with the laptop is that I can't find a way to get my wireless card working under Linux, so I almost exclusively use XP. It's a driver issue, but I've long since given up finding a good once since it's an old 802.11B card and even the Windows driver sucks. Linux works great when I actually plug my laptop with good ol' cat-5, but that doesn't happen very often.
I won't rehash _all_ the issues that need to be addressed before Linux Is Ready For The Desktop, but I'll mention one: ease-of-configuration. Installation and use of a well-configured machine is really brainless. Hell, I got Slackware installed and running once, I just never made it past that. When your average CS undergrad (or teenager, or businessman, or mother-of-two-who-OhMyGodTimmyPutThatDown) can configure a Linux computer without needing to heavily consult friends/the internet, it'll be much closer to reality.
PS: Without having read TFA, maybe the title shouldn't be "Why the World is Not Ready For Linux," but "Why Linux is Not Ready For the World."
- "Nobody came out that night, not one was ever seen. But Old Man Stauf is waiting there, crazy sick and mean!"
Ever notice that when there's an article with some criticism of Linux, it gets tagged "fud", "notfud", and often times "flamebait".
Sorry if this sounds like a troll, but I can't help but think of this as a piece of the puzzle of Linux v. the rest of the World.
I guess that's sort-of similar to how Illustrator works.
:)
Why should they be separate? Because every other painting/photo tool in existance has them separate, therefore it's consistency (an important part of usability). Also they're two different functions as far as the non-programming mind thinks - however like many Linux-based creations it seems to be made By Programmers For Programmers with that usual sprinkle of programmer laziness
Here's why:
./configure -switch=whazis4 -mustbeTRUEtoinstallonaDell=true
tar xzvf application1.0.83-RC37.tar.gz
cd application1.0.83-RC37
make
make install
Pray your dependencies are in order.
(alternately)
rpm is a slight improvement, but not all things come in rpm packages, and dependency errors still happen
apt-get is good, but the library of "stable" stuff is like 2 years old...
Linux just has to come up with a universal installation system.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Linux is good OS from the point of being stable, secure, fast, etc. Ease is use is good, and getting better - better than windows in many cases.
But, you don't run the OS just to run the OS. If the OS doesn't run the hardware/software that you want, then the OS is useless to you. It doesn't matter how "good" the OS is.
The linux community just doesn't get this. Much of the focus of current desktop linux development is on useless eye-candy like transparent window panes, and other hundred distros.
Perhaps the actual app changes, but the same functionality is the outcome...
your grandma: OS X does everything Windows does, it's easier, cleaner and friendlier (send email, look at Jr's school pictures)
your kids: OS X does everything Windows does (homework, chatting, iTunes); upcoming Leapord has some awesome parental controls in a easy package
normal users: OS X does everything that Windows does
business users: OS X does most things Windows does; for everything else there is Parallels
graphic / design development: OS X does it better then Windows
programmers: OS X does it the same as Windows; run multiple virtual machines in Parallels if you NEED a local IIS or whatever server)
gamers: hmmm...what games? yeah, chicken and egg issue. The games don't use OS X because the lack of games. The writes don't write games for OS X because there are no gamers. dual-boot a Mac Pro
hard core geeks: quad boot your MacPro and Macbook Pro while syncing your Zaurus
For the ten ZILLIONTH time. WHO CARES??!?
Linux was created by developers for technical people. Those of us who get it, use it. Those who don't can spend $300 to upgrade to vista, or use OSX. I wish the Linux user base would get a little bigger so companies like Adobe would start building versions of their products for Linux (photoshop, dreamweaver, flash). Other than that, I don't think everyone should use it. In fact, I don't even try to push it on my family because I don't want to support it. Microsoft has put billions of dollars into (unsuccessfully) creating a lame OS that even a monkey can figure out. When all my family members want to do is check email and buy stuff off ebay, why would I ask them to learn Linux. On the contrary, I would much prefer they bother the nice folks in Redmond with their lame questions.
Anyone who is a Linux developer and wants to grow the user base should definitely take your comments to heart. For the rest of us, we should continue what we are doing. Our software IS adapted to the user's expectations, those users just don't happen to be Joe six pack who's surfing for porn on a Friday night.
Find coupons in Greeley
When are you people going to finally understand that there are some people who simply don't care how to configure the drivers for the hardware, how to reinstall kernel, how to install a god damn piece software? It has to be simple and has to work. If I have never used Linux, and the first time I try to use it, I can't install a simple piece of software without downloading tens of other dependant files, I will throw Linux out, and put Windows back in. PC is a tool for me, not a game, I do not enjoy examining the kernel or figuring out what is the best way to install KSolitaire, infact. Things like that make people loos their productivity, and so, loose valuable time, and time, nowadays, is the most valuable resource of them all. (Well there's oil, but that will run out anyway.) In my opinion an OS should be as simple and standartised as possible, all the software should have the same type of interface, the installation procedure should be kept as simple as possible, because end user does not care about the installation process, he/she cares about the software being installed, and getting a chance to use it as soon as possible. I am a simple windows user, that has tried linux a few times, and, after finding out that software *** can't be installed due to 1937 dependant files that are unavailable, has switched the PC off and hidden himself under the sofa..
"There's a very good reason why Microsoft spends a lot of time on hardware compatibility -- it's what people want."
t ml
I agree with the last part of the sentence. Of course we all want things to work.
And first I'll admit I'm a linux programmer, user, I have like 6 machines at home all running linux.
My last experience is, my wife had to reinstall her windows box because of unstoppable spyware and viruses. And while the reinstallation was very much painless, a few hardware hasn't got the proper driver installed. The soundcard doesn't work, the TV capture card doesn't work. Display driver isn't the right one. And the worst thing is under windows we have no idea how to tell what hardware it is. Device manager says "Unknown device", details view gives no useful clue. It's her machine, she bought it, I've never touched or looked at it. And she has no idea what cards it has.
I ended up plugging in my USB stick bootable live linux and boot on her computer. At least I could use lspci to see what cards she has. And the best thing is, under the live linux, the sound card, TV capture card, and the display card are all working, with the right drivers.
I've also heard people spending an hour just installing a printer driver under windows, but it pretty much just works under linux.
For those who thinks windows has better hardware support, the only reason is they GET USED TO dealing problems with windows. People who don't know what to do to solve a problem under linux because they don't know linux, pretty much like me or many other people who don't know windows. My wife has installed/reinstalled windows probably a 100 times more than I have. Linux is a new world for them.
Micro$oft has done their job dominating the market, putting windows and BSOD everywhere. Ask any home users who have used windows 99% of their time, and they can tell you "all computers need constant rebooting and reinstalling, that's how it works, they just can't run for too long". They have no idea it's "windows", not "computers".
The myth, and truth with linux: http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.h
Actually I've got the Empower for ISV's subscription which includes Visual Studio 2005 and developer type stuff plus whatever is in the action pack. If I remember right it was $800 (which included licenses to run software as a business and not just as a developer). Thanks for the heads up with the action pack though, I'll tell a friend or two.
:-)
I exagerated for the sake of fun (and fact on the retail price) and since MS is the dominant platform the 800 was more than fair. Not complaining. And you really missed the point about SUN's offering which is why I feel my ignorance is not so bad and probably in point of fact is non-existant on this specific fun topic at least
Most of the users who would complain "I don't know how to use Linux" barely know how to use Windows either. They can manage to do things if they are explicitly shown how to double-click to run the program and perform a predetermined set of tasks, but if you ask them to do much else, most people are at a loss. It never occurs to them that every program they've ever used has a "menu" at the top from which they can "do stuff" -- put a new program in front of them that they've never seen, and they're asking for help three seconds later.
Okay, it's a bit cynical, but for many people it's also true. They have no real basis from which to say "Linux? But I don't know how, and I do know Windows." I suspect that if you put KDE in front of them and told them it was the new version of Windows, they'd never know the difference.
As for getting things up and running, Windows is not any easier than Linux, at least some distros. I realize everyone's machine is different and therefore things are not always going to go the same, but my Ubuntu install really was as easy as inserting the CD, clicking "Install", answering a few questions about myself and my time zone, and 20 minutes later I had a usable machine complete with most of the crap a user would ever care about -- email, web, office environment, music players, CD burners, DVD players, etc.
A base Windows install? You'll have IE and Outlook. Maybe WMP. Anything else you want you're going to have to find some third party software.
Here are my notes from a recent XP install at work, by the way. Do you think ANY user is going to know what to do for this stuff? What possible claim can there be for this nonsense that Windows is somehow easier?
Two identical questionos about install vs repair. (Just idiotic) Partition manager makes no recommendations, issues dire warnings. (User has no idea what to do.)
Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: System32\drivers\ntfs.sys (User: "Duhhhh.... uhhhh...")
Run setup to repair console as per suggestion:
File setupdd.sys could not be loaded. The error code is 7. (User: "Uhhh.. er....")
Setup cannot continue.
Press any key to exit.
(Great! Thanks, Windows!)
Fifth reboot, the damn thing FINALLY loads.
40 minutes of installing stuff. Questions about keyboard and stuff. 20 more minutes of commercials about Windows Movie Maker.
Stalls at 13 minutes with zero indication of progress. Just "Registering New Components..." Even I seriously thought about turning the damn thing off.
First boot. Resolution sucks ass. Like a user is going to know how to change it? Okay, some do. But before they can do anything they're interupted by panic-stricken messages about TAKE A TOUR OF WINDOWS OMFG THE FIREWALL IS OFF OMFG THE VIRUS DEFINITIONS HEY NEW HARDWARE DETECTED HEY YOU NEED TO REBOOT HEY HEY HEY
Then my favorite part. No network -- no ethernet, no wireless. No sound. No: Ethernet controller. Multimedia audio controller. Network controller. O2Micro Smartcard reader. PCI modem. Video controller.
"Ethernet controller. It is recommended that you connect to the Internet so that the wizard can search online and look for the appropriate software."
Uh yeah. Now I have to take my (Ubuntu) laptop, scour the net for drivers, burn them on a CD (with, I might add, Gnome's handy built-in utility), and take them to the Windows box just to get this crap working.
Give me a fucking break. There is no way a user would have made it this far. Explain to me how this is easier than a friendly distro like Ubuntu or SuSE?
mirrorshades radio -- darkwave, industrial, futurepop, ebm.
Seriously, the only way to do that is to get a preinstalled system or get someone elese to set it up for you. In linux X windows setup can be a pain if you want something a bit beyond the default - in MS windows third party device drivers can be a real pain as well as cretinous limitations on available tools (eg. If you want a large fat32 partition you need to use something like linux to partition and format it first before you install XP). Around the world there are a lot of places that sell pre-installed linux systems with browser, office suite etc. For people that set up theior own systems it will not always be easy - you have to learn about the system you install - whether that is learning how to configure stuff in /etc or learning about the registry AND learning about C:/windows/system32/etc. Installing a system you know little about may be frustrating - so I would suggest using knoppix first for a while if you are thinking of linux.
There are other solutions too: I don't know much about Macs - in theory I was supposed to look after a few of them and I read up on them at that point and played with one for a couple of days - but the only questions I got from the Mac users were things like "I'm using a new mail program - what is the name of the mail server?".
Well that was the same story with me like 7 or 8 years ago. The thing is, dont run it on your main machine. Set up a webserver, mailserver, ftp, ssh, etc on a old box you have kicking around.. Thats how I learned how to use linux. I mean im still pretty novice at it, but I had the same sort of problems when i started out (vi command syntax issues..). Then, through the errors and troubleshooting, I learned where various parts of the os were kept /var/log, /etc/init.d /usr/bin ... Its all trial and error for everyone, no one is born just getting linux. It is the exact same with torubleshooting windows though - you have just been using windows longer so you know "how it rolls" so to speak. Try fixing a video card on windows without knowing what a driver or screen resolution is or where to change them. You would of course have to look it up. I actually like the man pages. MUCH more useful then windows help.. MUCH.
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
"people" want it to be... Which people? Not everyone, not me. Personally I hope to see Linux evolve into a system that's really good for people like me - people who want an environment especially well-suited to tinkering. I think it has the potential and the flexibility - but one of the problems is that even people who want to tinker also want their computer to assist them in various ways. I think the need for a -print0 option is an inherent flaw in the way "find" works, for instance - and I'd like a certain degree of consistency across the various tools that's hard to accomplish without an organized leadership. There's lots of great ideas - for instance, I think the Emacs command interface is brilliant (hotkey sequences combined with a decent help system and the ability to specify commands by name if you've forgotten the hotkey sequence) but things like that are sort of little citadels surrounded by wilderness. If you step outside Emacs, you lose the benefit of the Emacs command interface - and other apps have great stuff to offer, too, but none of it really meshes from one app to another.
But the appliance thing? It's been tried, and computers just aren't ready to be appliances yet. Or rather, people still need the "general purpose" computer, in part because everything they do on the computer is still evolving. Web standards change, hardware standards change, new software comes out all the time, and so on. People keep thinking of new things to do with computers. Things haven't settled enough for computers to be commodity "appliances" - or at least, if you treat the computer like that you're missing out on the full potential of the thing. (The botnet problem, for instance, could be solved by thoroughly debugging the e-mail, web, etc. apps, burning them to ROM, and allowing nothing else on the system to execute - but that doesn't work now, 'cause there'd be some new version of Flash, some new video codec, a new CSS or HTML spec, etc. and users would want that stuff to work.)
Now, that doesn't mean that a system that attempts to fill the needs of people who want a certain set of functionality, with no headaches, is a bad thing. I just don't believe that a system like that should be expected to serve everyone. I think it's good that projects like KDE are trying to serve that niche, but at the same time I think that treating that kind of thing as if it's the whole point of Linux is a little shortsighted. I think there's a popular notion that's evolved out this desire to turn Linux into an "appliance-wannabe" system like Windows or Mac OS, the notion that it's inherently poor design to create an application based on the needs and expectations of hackers or power users as opposed to the vast majority of users... Or, conversely, that, with few exceptions, the ideal for a UI design is always the design that works reasonably well for the largest number of people. There is some merit to this idea - different people handle ideas in different ways, and so it's good to use a style that fits these different ways of thinking - but I believe that it's worthwhile to create systems that are specifically well-suited to power users. Some people just want to operate at a "higher" level of sorts, have more extensive control over more minute details, and so on. The key is to not be lazy about it: make the app complicated but aim to make it fit well with its neighbors' styles and in addition to providing all the power user functionality, be sure to include ways to manage that complexity intelligently. And also, it help
---GEC
I'm but the humble pupil, seeking to snatch the scratchbuilt pebble from the master's fully articulated hand
dude don't compare a p2 with p4 that's like comparing a lada with a ferari. people don't buy p4's to play cube or nethack or anything like that, it's made for the newest games that require alot of speed(bf2,css,hl2,oblivion,etc...). Can you run css or oblivion on your p2, so it looks good and plays as good as on a p4? I think not.
Even if every hardware maker wrote Linux drivers, the situation wouldn't be much different than it is now. There's a perfectly functional nVidia driver that no Linux vendor bothers to integrate properly (if they even ship it at all) because the source code isn't available. Does the average user care why that is? Would you buy a car that didn't come with tires because the manufacturer is above doing business with tire manufacturers? Would the reason even matter?
Linux has plenty of technical problems keeping it off the desktop, but the biggest reason it's a failure in the world beyond Slashdot is the childish politics. Microsoft and Apple don't have "access to the specs" either; the difference is that the Linux crowd treats closed-source vendors so badly that few of them bother. Shipping binary software for Linux is really hard, and that's no accident. And breaking binary-only drivers with every kernel point-release just takes the cake. I'm surprised anyone even tries.
But that's okay. Linux can survive just fine even if it never grows up; there's plenty of need for free Unix in the world, even if it's not useful on the desktop. The real lie is pretending that the hardware manufacturers are the biggest problem. The Linux community pretty clearly doesn't want much to do with closed-source software, and these are the consequences.
I think I can see the point why linux striggles still for many, it is the install, the UIs, the experience, simple fact is some people, many people (or Windows would be erroding) do not care about the advantages of Linux. Same thing with Asterix, or sendmail, they do not make it into the home because of the learning curves. Take Skype, closed network, not great quality all the time, but people do use it at home, why, easy to get, easy to use. Recently CommuniGate Pro was made free for the home too, and people use that over Asterix, same reason, easy to get, easy to install.
it's not difficult , it took me about 3 minutes to get it working... http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/explore2fs. htm
If you don't like my sig then don't read it.
It's obviously a rehash of the "same old, same old" arguments about "problems with Linux." You just as easily write a "same old, same old" article about "problems with Windows" (security, reliability, cost, etc. ad nauseum.)
I decided this past week to upgrade my Mandriva 2006 to Mandriva 2007.
It didn't work. Mandriva 2007 failed to even detect my standard Microsoft mouse correctly and failed to handle the X Window settings correctly, resulting in a boot to the command line. Two hours of work to try to fix the problem failed. I considered the possibility that the Linux Format DVD I used was actually a pre-release version of Mandriva instead of a final release, so I spent five hours downloading the four CD ISO images.
A clean install worked okay - except for numerous minor issues which no Windows user would have been able to resolve - in particular, a ridiculously badly designed KDE utility that handles the insertion and automatic playing of media - which doesn't work at all with either KMPlayer or Totem, the two video players for Mandriva. Those glitches are either resolved now or ignored by me with workarounds, and I'm using Mandriva 2007 now.
Does this mean Linux is not ready for the desktop?
No.
It means Mandriva is too small a company to produce a distro of the ever more complex Linux that has been adequately tested and has all the glitches out that may impact the ordinary end user.
Now I've warned about this before here - that Linux is getting so big and complicated that it will eventually be as bug ridden and unreliable and insecure as Windows.
That hasn't happened - yet. But it will unless Linus and the distro companies and the community realize it can happen and take steps to avoid this unhappy result.
In the meantime, people who want Linux to "just work" had better choose distros that are either maintained by companies with the assets to perform competent tweaking and adequate testing (such as Novell), or by communities that have the members to do so.
This is an issue only for home users. For companies, this is not an issue - you hire a Linux expert as an employee or consultant to make sure it "just works" - the same way you do with Windows.
Once you get Linux ON your system, it works perfectly fine as a desktop. It's getting it there that is the problem for many people - even experts.
And that's an issue with the design of the DISTRO - NOT the Linux kernel itself or even most of the end user applications.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I would just guess that Ubuntu with all whistles and bells is the problem - something like vector linux designed to run on low memory systems would be the way to go. I do know what I am talking about - my work machine is now six years old and has running at all times - two copies of X windows, VNC server, ganglia cluster monitor, nagios system monitor, apache and 30 instances of gkrellm. It usually has mozilla, openoffice and about a dozen Eterms open at any time as well - this is on a 600MHz PIII with 512MB running Fedora Core 4. With less memory you could still run a lot - but I would go for something othere than Fedora, Ubuntu, Mandriva - last years version of Vector Linux ran well on a slow 486 laptop with 128MB of memory.
It is a different way of doing things - *nix systems have documentation like man pages instead of a tutorial written by someone puzzling through a poorly documented app. There are also books in print and online form.
The letter "q" for quit - see that manual for man, less or more for details - the manual for less is shorter and to the point. I can understand the annoyance about a different documentation system if you are used to something like MS help - for instance the "info" help system is confusing to me (which is used by those on the fringe ideologically opposed to man pages) so I tend to use "pinfo" for it instead instead that behaves like a web browser.
As true as your points are, I find the distro argument has become the solve-all fallback to defend Linux now. If you use RedHat, people will say you're a silly newbie and should use Mandrake - unless you already are, then they'll say use Debian - but if you are, they'll say use Ubuntu, - and if you are, then... [insert favorite distro here]
:/
Even if you don't have to be a Linux expert to use Linux (I guess you don't - you just have to read and understand docs for weeks on end...) you DO have to be a Linux expert just to know which distribution to install in the first place! I think with the ubiquity of different versions of Linux out there, this has really become a sticking point with potential new users, as they see the list, have no idea, and end up either getting WinXP Home, Pro, or Media Center.
people don't care about the os, it is the applications that run on it.
if you are able to do what you need to do, then people will not complain. but if you install them a system "lacking" their own needs, it becomes insufficient.
Live your life each day as if it was your last.
I recently built a new box from the ground up. It's meant for games. After installing XP, I set apart ~20GB and tried to install Debian on it.
Well, that was only the beginning. I went for netinstall, which seemed to be the most recommended method. Since this was a new box, it had relatively new hardware, and it complained about not finding any network hardware, which the netinst CD I burned wouldn't support. Oh well. One CD chucked aside. I went on #debian on Freenode, and was told to get a custom version from kmuto.jp. After downloading it... still no luck.
I went back to #debian and this time they told me to get the bleeding edge version, with kernel 2.6, which should support it. Well, now it identified the hardware, but it still refused to install properly. Eventually I got tired of wasting CDs on it, and being afraid to ask questions on the channel for fear of missing the blindingly obvious.
Epilogue: After a week of letting the 20GB sit unused hoping I'd pick up interest in it again, I just went into Partition Magic and gave the space back to my second XP partition.
I'm not saying #debian is crap, I'm not dissing Linux. I'd already tried Fedora Core on a different machine and ran Apache and UnrealIRCd on it quite successfully, but I felt like trying a less "noobish" distribution.
I was probably in over my head with Debian, but a little bit more hardware compatibility there would have been good... I'm just saying. And I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but installing a desktop environment after this whole ordeal would probably be even more irritating...
"Let's face it, it's a good story. Accuracy would kill it."
I absolutely agree.
Don't blame linux. Ask vendors to publish driver's specifications.
People will write drivers themselves.
Look at IBM way of writing drivers:
ipw2200.sourceforge.net. You won't find much problem. You will find a lot of fixes right away.
And compare it with a close source ATI driver for linux:
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Problems_with_fglrx
Isn't it a good example?
ATI themselves can write a proper driver for linux. They was 4 month slow to change API for xorg 7.1, some crashes/hangs bugs are in a unofficial ATI's bugtrack system for more then 1 YEAR!
This is nothing to do with linux.
are almost ready for unsupported SOHO users. This is based on my recent reviews of SLED10, freespire, and my installing FC6 on the test HD last night. In fact, I'm planning to put freespire on the next desktop I set up for my non-tech roommates, though I'm setting up multimedia first.
If the major desktop distros solve their most obvious problems (multimedia and peripherals and in Linspire's case, making sure that nobody can install a command-line program via CNR by mistake) and given what's bundled into a regular Linux install (OpenOffice, Firefox, e-mail)... given that I've seen two distros with rpm installers that handle dependencies from randomly chosen rpms not on repositories... and that it is no longer a novelty to have distros come up with Internet access enabled on first boot because the distro found and installed the network correctly... Linspire 6 or FC7 or V11 of OpenSUSE / SLED (if they last long enough to create a V11) or the next Mandriva or Ubuntu might actually be the Vista-killer SLED10 didn't turn out to be. On freespire, I even found that the Lphoto camera application (SOMEBODY PORT THIS TO FC6!!!) recognizes my generic USB mass storage camera, no hassles. I'm seeing wireless automatically picked up in the install process. (freespire)
This may be the real reason Microsoft is crawling into bed with Novell (and why Novell seems to have suddenly lost interest in desktops). The Linux desktop is at long last almost ready to be a threat to the MS desktop monopoly. If somebody were to drop a megabuck into peripheral driver development or find a way to force peripheral manufacturers to step up to the plate, the word "almost" would no longer apply. If any major Linux player wants to give MS a kick in the balls, that's where to do it.
Tech Public Policy stuff
In what country? Most western European languages put the verb before the object (e.g. draw box or move box). But Basque, Japanese, Turkish, and (in some cases) German put the object before the verb (e.g. box move or box draw). Here, you'll want a "box" tool, and then you can choose to "move" it (drag it around while still in box) or "draw" it (stroke). In fact, the original Mac interface guidelines recommended object-verb conceptual order.
I know gentoo gets a bad press, but I think frankly it's the most user-friendly distro around; better than ubuntu! It's true. I have installed Gentoo on my home machine, and Ubuntu on my dad's box. Gentoo has the most complete documentation EVER. Anything you can think of, there is an ebuild, and step-by-step docs in the wiki or forums. Whereas, on Ubuntu, if you want to do something that they didn't think of (and there is a long list of things), you're totally SOL.
With Gentoo, I find the wiki is constantly updated and is a one-stop shop to get information on ANYTHING. Just cut-and-paste the steps from the wiki onto the cmdline, and you're done!
Rehashing the same arguments (gaming, hardware support etc) that everyone knows about.
But I'd like to disagree on the issue of simplicity. Windows has steadily been "simplifying" things for years, to the point where important aspects of a computer's function are hidden away - so it actually makes it much HARDER for people to understand how things work, and/or to fix things when they go wrong.
I don't want an operating system that treats me like a moron. I don't care if "the world" isn't ready for Linux - it does what I want, in a far superior fashion. So I'm happy.
From the article: "Stop assuming that everyone using Linux (or who wants to use Linux) is a Linux expert" Most distros do not, and neither do the application developers. I wonder if the writer of that article has even seen the modern distros such as Ubuntu? Somehow I doubt it. If anything, in Linux it's going too far in the other direction. Not to start a KDE vs Gnome argument, but certain desktop enviroments seem to go even further than Windows in assuming that the user is an idiot. A word on hardware support. "Out the box" hardware support seems to have been better on gnu/linx than on Windows for a long time now. My printer/scanner/photocopier, for example was detected right away in *nix without having to install any additional drivers. Not the case in XP and certainly not in Vista. This is a fairly new model, the Lexmark P4350.
Just kidding. It's hard as hell, and after you've payed Cedega to get your Halflife2 running, you'll upgrade video cards and the framerate will drop through the floor due to some gayness or the other. Not to mention the fact that by even using Cedega you've halfway sold your soul to satan...the wine half I suppose. And don't ever say wine isn't the best app in linux, because it is, seriously it is.
/etc/CONFIGFILE and change the line where it says WORKPROPERLY=0 to 1. After that it's a hop-skip-and-jump to sudo /etc/init.d/THEDAEMON restart.
/etc/X11/xorg.conf file and change the driver= line to vesa. It still couldn't load the module because they left that crap out. c'mon vesa got left out? c'mon. BTW the new ATI driver is attained by doing something like "apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-ati" It used to be "apt-get install xserver-xorg-driver-ati" WTF was that change about? Was it worth pissing me off and dropping countless Thinkpad users to a console after an upgrade? That was rhetorical. Answer: NO (the resounding kind)
You'll then backup your important files, and reboot with an XP install CD in the drive, dump your ext3 partitions, and go all NTFS. End of story.
All this was after you spent months denying yourself common abilities taken for granted in the good 'ol windows days. Before you react to that statement, think about it. Sure *almost* everything is possible in linux, but you have to add the damn WHATEVER package repositories after you google for an hour to find out you need them, then google for another hour to find a damn forum post half way down the third page in a thread that points you to the precise syntax for your distro. Then it IS easy, all you have to do is a string of COMMAND LINE entries then a simple sudo gedit
As far as Ubuntu "just working" I have to agree...mostly... I did an upgrade via gksudo (upgrademanager?) -c and it allowed me to upgrade. It downloaded a ton of crap and configured it all, then it rebooted. BLAMMO X server couldn't start, would you like to see a log file about it?
Hell no I don't want to see a log file about it, I want you to load the vesa driver and re-autodetect my ATI graphics card you supported perfectly in the previous version. That's what windows would do. It would dump you in "VGA Mode" - read VESA 16 or 8 bit color @ 800x600 or 640x480 @ 60Hz, whichever highest mode worked for your card, once in windows it would plug-n-play your card and prompt for a reboot. Why? because it lives and dies by the GUI. No GUI => No OS. You don't get a command line crutch unless you count Bart's PE.
Turns out they renamed the apt-get packages for the video driver, didn't include VESA as a standard, and generally borked it. So even though I knew enough to edit my
So sure the upgrade was flawless except the part where I had to download a driver from a command prompt because there was no VGA mode type safe-modish GUI. elinks and links were notably absent in the CLI. It did have nano, at least they don't expect people to use vi for crissakes.
Don't kid yourselves, linux is by geeks, for geeks. If you know what you're doing it can kick the living crap out of Windows about 85 times in a second and continue to run for years on end... But a lot of the time it does seem like too many chefs making bad soup.
Q for quit.
Welcome to Gentoo Linux.
Although, the problem here is it really only helps with things like the nvidia drivers, where you're required to compile it on your own machine -- the vast majority of the stuff would be better precompiled.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
As a reformed Linux fan boi (I work with it in the server room now and am quite happy using Windows XP or OSX on my workstations) I feel your pain. Linux isn't ready and the inability of some (very vocal) members of the community effectively puts an end to real dialog. Fortunately they are only a small (annoying, loud) contingent.
Fortunately there are moderates like, say, Linus Torvalds who tend to take a much more pragmatic (and good humored) approach.
Quack, quack.
I been caught in that linux hype,and tried to switch from win98 to mandrake 7 or 8 or something similar. ,even control panel was there.expirience of actual usage proved i need to read megabytes of text to configure stuff,so i dedicated a week for X windows configuration. ,formatted the drive,created a fat32 partittion and happily installed win98 back with all my backup disks.
The gui was nice
After trying every FAQ it finally worked
and i was "Delighted" to know that many parts of linux require similar "fiddling and configuring" to work.All Libraries and drivers must installed properly or else.Trying to relieve the stress i played few of those silly games bundled with mandrake, some sokoban clone.
After loading gimp i spent a hour to figure to draw few lines,and that after consulting help.Everything was extremely awkward and unintuitive.Trying to listen to music proved frustrating,becuase i needed the drivers which i couldn't find.
In the end of expiriment i Fdisked back the MBR
We use a lot of 'White Box' vendors with our desktop and server gear. I handle all the installations, both Linux (server) and Windows (desktop). Honestly I think they are pretty close until you hit a proprietary driver issue. Thats when things get...interesting.
Back in the Linux vs. Windows 98 I actually got a few good chuckles (Mandrake's drives and hardware recognition versus Windows...well lack). But XP found Microsoft catching up. They may not innovate much, but thats not to say they don't get it.
Today installation is fairly close and we can start to focus more on the the less esoteric issues, like vendor support and application design. The areas where Linux is still playing catch-up.
That is a good thing, we've come a long way but there is always room for growth.
Quack, quack.
Well, I happen to be both. I am a 'Linux expert' in that I get paid for my expertise (systems admin and *mostly* enjoy it).
However after having used Linux for 7 or 8 years on the desktop I've had enough. I stopped booting it regularly (excluding the MythTV system, granted) about a year ago. I want to be lazy. I spend all week configuring, testing and troubleshooting systems. The last thing I want to do is spend the weekend doing the same just to update my workstation.
And for smart how's Linux factor into that anyway? I mean granted, its a fine learning tool, but then so is Solaris and FreeBSD. If you're really interested in becoming smart (whatever that means) then limiting yourself to one operating system is decidely not smart. If its computer science that interests you then Linux distros are just one drop and a very interesting pool. Certainly not the be-all and end-all.
If anything Linux is for the lazy. Its just hasn't fully achieved its purpose yet. It detects my hardware, installs my drivers. Downloads and installs my software and its dependancies all the while flashing more and more polished graphics and workstation eye-candy.
Quack, quack.
Ihave tried about a dozen Linux OS. Some hard disk installs must mostly live CD; Pretty easy to install and get on the web for basic stuff. (A bit easier than windows actually) I only used the terminal on 2 occasions, and I decided this is ridiculous unless I want to spend many weekends to MAY BE set-up to do what I am already doing in Windows) while trialing one of the HD installs, I spent a fruitless afternoon looking for the same code which took 5 minutes to find only days before that. I don't want to get under the hood. Nor do i want to become a mechanic. I have wasted enough time. Well I am one of the "most people", except that I DO care what I use. I love the freedom aspect of Linux and would like to eventually drop windows. Some of you may argue to convert me to your reasons for using Linux, and tell me what most people want, but I am telling you that DaveAtFraud has captured the essence of at least the person writing to you right now. I am not sure, but am positive that heaps more people have preference for turn key OS & don't want to get under the hood. You can give me your reason to try to get me to permanently run in your shoes but as human beings we vary in size, shape, desires, likes, dislikes. We all have different reasons for whatever we do or don't do. What I definitely know is that the windows power saw requires far less under the hood complications & knowledge to use than some Linux OS. Some of which are far better with this than others, but not quite there yet. If you already have a system that is more "turn key" like (windows) than Linux, (broadly speaking) then why would you go to something that asks you to get deep under the hood? As I said, my reasons are philosophical, but I have an issue with getting under the hood. Yeah sure, its easy once you have become a mechanic, but not everyone wants to do so. Not everyone has the same level of technical adaptability or time required by some Linux OS. This is not saying there is anything wrong with the system of command line complications to get something going. Horses for courses. We human beings are all different. We have the same potential but we wont all do the same thing. Nor do we have the same; fluidity in our potentialities. We each have our area of specialty where we flow more readily in productivity. Some people are highly creative, some highly inclined to technicality. I have a high level of mechanical aptitude, but I really could not be bothered any more with torque wrenches when it comes to car repairs or adjustments. (I did not go to school, but learned by exploring) For specific reasons, I change the oil on my car but that's where I draw the line. So I get the mechanics to do the other stuff. I don't want to get my hands dirty, or spend the weekend on that. Yeah sure, its great to do your own repairs; save money, know exactly what is done etc. Do you think mums want to be mechanics? Sure they could probably do it, but would they do it? Would they want to do it? Perhaps there is one in the country you live that might have that inclination. Call me lazy or whatever you want, but I want the short path, and what I have now is a shorter path, except it is not aligned with my philosophical ideology. Like a sign I read yesterday "why make it harder?" I so no reason to make it harder. I have been slack over the past 6 months, but intend to keep checking out new Linux releases. I do believe Linux on an overall basis will eventually get closer to what most pc users would prefer. Otherwise it just stays in the domain of mechanics (or the technically oriented) That's it. I'm not going to say any more. You do what you do and ill just keep on keeping on.
But what this article (and many other people) are complaining about has nothing to do with any of these things. In fact, it has nothing to do with the Linux kernel whatsoever. What this article is complaining about is ease of use of distributions and gadgetery and the perceived lack of games. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I see it, there is absolutely nothing in Linux that prevents anyone from turning it into a copy of OS X for Joe Average to use, right? So how is there anything wrong with Linux? I know I'm being a bit picky here, but let's at least try to clearly define where this "problem" really lies.
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Here are a few points I think are worth thinking about.
I've read a lot of comments here that talk about "Linux". "Generic Linux" doesn't exist. What we should be talking about are distros. How many distros of Windows are there? If we treat XP Home and Pro and the server Windows OSs as seperate distros then very few and they're all from Microsoft and very similar. If we compare Gentoo with Ubuntu we find that they're very different in a lot of ways. Comparing "Generic Linux" with Windows becomes pointless. We should be thinking of each distro as a seperate OS then we can compare Gentoo OS with Ubuntu OS with Windows OS and make it meaningful. It's a small difference but "Why the world isn't ready for Gentoo" makes more sense and can be extended with "but might be ready for Ubuntu".
How hard is a Linux OS to use? Let's look at what I've done today on my Fedora Core 6 system:
- I downloaded and played a MP4 video podcast in Xine. I double-clicked the downloaded file to start watching it.
- I was at an event last night and needed to get the photos off of my camera. I plugged it in and an app started. The app let me import my photos.
- My Dad wants a copy of the photos on a CD. I put a blank CD into the drive, started the "CD/DVD Creator", dragged my photos to it's window and "Write to Disc".
- I have some other video podcasts in DivX format that will play on my DVD player. I have a DVD+RW for this purpose. I followed the above procedure but this time clicked the "Erase Disc" button before burning.
- I read my email in Evolution by pressing the "Mail" button on my keyboard.
- I read some web pages in Firefox.
- I updated a spreadsheet by double-clicking the spreadsheet file.
None of that sounds any harder than using Windows to me. My girlfriend who isn't technical at all has no problems using Fedora. All she needed were some pointers but she'd need those if I had swapped apps on Windows.I'll anticipate a couple of questions here. How did I get Xine installed and working with various proprietary codecs? I added the Livna repository, used "Add/Remove Software" and downloaded and copied over the codecs. But how is Joe Average going to know to do that? He isn't but then on Windows he may have to install extra codecs and I've met people who give up when a Quicktime or DivX movie doesn't work out of the box.
Installation and hardware compatibility comes up a lot. I picked my hardware to make sure it works with most Linux distros. Fedora and Ubuntu detected all my hardware and just worked with my camera. Windows XP doesn't recognise my network card or sound card without me downloading and installing extra drivers. How's Joe Average supposed to do that? He isn't. He buys a PC that's been set up by an OEM that pre-configured all the hardware and provides a recovery disc that includes the drivers if he needs to reinstall. A lot of people who try a Linux distro want a dual-boot system. They have to repartition their hard drive for a start and could lose all their data if something goes wrong. Look at it the other way round though. Installing Windows on an Ubuntu system still requires repartitioning but Windows will blitz the MBR hiding Ubuntu. I'd say installing Windows on a preinstalled "Linux" system could actually be harder for Joe Average because he now has the extra hassle of booting a recovery, chroot and deal with GRUB or LILO.
We're not comparing apples with apples in these discussions. We're discussing pre-installed Windows against either some "Generic Linux" OS that doesn't exist or a user's experiences installing a Linux distro in most cases. When I give a Linux-based system to someone I install and configure the OS. I add repositories and support for various proprietary formats. They don't seem to have any more problems than they do with Windows.
Andy.
Well, maybe because that's not the way it works with circles, lines, et cetera? Or do you really select a line in GIMP and then draw it?
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Ellipses and Bezier paths in GIMP are select then stroke. This allows the user to define a shape, stroke it, and then undo and restroke the path with different brushes until satisfied. Lines and polylines can be drawn either with click and shift-click or by stroking Bezier paths.
I want to move off of Windows 2000 to Linux. So far, I've gotten about a third of the way there. I am not inexperienced. I have build UNIX workstations from bare metal. I have installed Emacs and gcc from scratch numerous times. Yet I find the migration to be daunting.
I've run into stuff like this:
Not even knowing where to start climbing the mountain. Simple things like MP3->WAV and WAV->MP3, ripping a CD, burning a CD, etc -- just day-to-day stuff that's trivial in Windows -- are day-long research projects. How do I get my printer to work with Linux? How do I get my scanner to work? I'm sure I can do it, eventually, but it's such a huge time sink trying to figure out how. Using USB devices in Linux took me days to figure out. It's a piece of cake now that I've climbed the mountain, but I despair of doing that sort of research project over and over for everything I run into.
Insane software installs. I tried to build the Psi IM client. It required this incredible toolkit called Qt that took hours to build. I found out that the add-in Psi needed would not build with the current version, so I had to start over with an earlier one. After another several hours of building it, I found out the add-in would only work with the multi-threaded version, so another build. After installing both, Psi found Qt but not the add in. I said nuts to it and gave up. Some software works great, but some of these installs are inhuman. I finally found a RH9 RPM of an older version, and it works fine.
My Linux box is my Internet connection router and has a lot of stuff on it like special SATA drivers. I can't just take it down for days/weeks while I upgrade. How do I upgrade off of Red Hat 9 without rebuilding the box? I haven't answered that question yet and am still using RH9.
What do I do about all my documents that use TTF fonts? OpenOffice reads my .doc files, but how to I install fonts? Another mountain to climb...
How do I make a PPP connection with my emergency modem dial-in access? Trivial in Windows, but I don't know where to start in Linux. Another mountain to climb...
Any one issue would be easy to solve, given enough time. But what's daunting me is the incredible amount of these issues to tackle, one after the other. By the time I migrate off of Win2K, I'll be on some other ancient, unsupported Linux version like RH9, and then what?
I'm sure I'm not the first or the last to observe that the world is not ready for any operating system. 90 percent of the Windows or Mac users I know (and I know a lot!) know about less than 10% of the features their operating system offers, and they can use about half of these. The reason why Linux distros seem so demanding is that there is very little you can do with it if you only know 5% of the features. This is not an inherent problem -- it is perfectly possible to create a distro where a knowledge of 5% of the features is enough to write emails, surf the web, write a letter and watch ripped DVDs. But Linux users and distributors are not content with knowing those 5% and so such a distribution does not exist.
Arguments such as these: "Linux is too hard"
Should also be used in arguments like: "Ignorant and lazy people, who want things to be easy, are stopping the Human Race from advancing".
Because honestly, how are we as a society going to keep on progressing, striving to achieve an Utopian society even though we know it might not be possible to truely reach it -- when every advancement we make, we have to dumb it down, simplify it, reduce its reach -- in order for the masses to use it (and use it poorly at that)?
When will this end?
---FourChannel---
...but have some non-negotiable user needs. I need to to connect to the Internet with wireless adpaters. I need it to work with my existing printers and scanners. I'd like it drive the dual monitors on my primary machin (and would settle for just one at it's native resolution....but the display looks nasty). I need it to drive my old sound card that powers my relatively new 5.1 speakers. I get bits and pieces depending on which of set of hardware I use. I haven't even got to the point where I've wanted to do any digitial image processing yet.
I'm geekier than most home users. I've worked in a supported Unix environment for years, and have built my own (Wintel) machines. I've tried Mandrake, Suse and Ubuntu and one other distro that I can't remember now...but simply can't get to the same level of out-of-the box system functionality that I get in a Windows hardware environment. I've got a full time job, a part-time job and go to school part-time too. My Windows OS environment is stable enough to allow me to to the things above.
I love open source. I love freeware. I love stability. But crawling through this for every hardware device just isn't worth the time:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=84338
Mayne I'll just go the Mac OS X route for my next hardware purchase...
Don't let me discourage you from trying Linux again. By all means, go for it. The only windoze box I still have in the house is my wife's W2K Dell 1GHz. She doesn't like change which means she's going to stick with Windoze until she has to switch to either a different version of windoze or Linux. I'm pushing Linux.
Oh, I'm not discouraged by or about Linux. I hope to get very good with it. I want to be able to service Linux, set it up, update it, and upgrade it. Actually I'm looking to update the Redhat I have installed on my NT box. Then I can put it to use.
From what I've heard, Ubuntu should be equally clean. If something doesn't work, Google is your friend. Besides the Ubuntu web site, you might also find Linuxquestions.org to be a decent resource. Linspire is also a good starter distro even though the same bit twiddlers deride it because it contains quite a bit of proprietary code to achieve compatibility. If you continue with the Linspire route, do some research as to how to secure your system. Some of Linspire's compatibility and ease of use comes at the price of bypassing some of the things that make Linux so secure.
I've heard the same about Ubuntu which is in part why I want to try it, setup my Linspire box as dualboot. Actually it looks as if if I want to install a DVD I'll have to use Ubuntu, Linspire is only compatible with a narrow range of DVD drives. I'm hoping to find one but I haven't been able to find any that's dual layer that is supported. Linspire's insufficient support for hardware is a negative, the only reason I got it is because the PC came with it installed, and I got the PC because it was cheap.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Why is the world not ready for Linux? Because Linux is not ready for the world.
/ Per
I feel that Linux, and the impetus for it, is so much more important to computing than that of Windows. That being said, I use windows for my desktop environment because it just works, and I can do a complete rebuild in under a day versus nearly a week for a typical Linux desktop. I use Linux for my servers. These tend to be very quick installs with no special crap to configure (Xorg, printers, sound, video). While my philosophical stance on computing runs parallel to the Linux community, I am a pragmatist when dealing with my day-to-day activities. Linux for servers is top-notch, but I'm still waiting for the Desktop to catch up.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It means getting the kids and Mr Schenck from next door over and doing it all over and over again until you are quite sure that the most drooling moron will be able to do x, y or z.
Ya, I suppose it takes advanced degrees in user interface design to understand that:
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
is not user friendly. But don't take my word for it. Go google for [ubuntu refresh rate] yourself and take a look at the first hit.
Just a friendly warning in case you're enough of a drooling moron to run that command. There's a good chance restoring xorg.conf won't get you back to where you started... (Especially in cases where you were having trouble in the first place.)