Is Linux Out of Touch With the Average User?

MrSmith writes "Is Linux's less than impressive market share an indication that the movement is out of touch with the average computer user? ZDNet examines five reasons that could explain why people are still willing to pay for (or pirate) an operating system when free alternatives exist. One of the reasons seems to be that despite what many Linux advocates claim, Windows users aren't on the whole dissatisfied with their OS: 'Despite what you read on websites and blogs, newspapers and magazines, people on the whole aren't all that dissatisfied with Windows. There are millions of users out there who just get on and use their PCs without any real difficulty.'"

Comments

Eat crap, 10 zillion flies can't be wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

In my experience, Microsoft has most users well-trained to accept shit, basically. They put up with ridiculously poor performance, astounding flakiness (I'm sorry, you wanted to copy a file? I can't let you do that, dave...), hostile we-own-your-soul-and-its-our-right-to-spy-on-you vendors (more a feature of the windows ecosystem as a whole than just microsoft) and just think it's normal. They're not dissatisfied with windows because they don't know any better, they mutely reinstall every 6 months to clear the crud, and are happy. Like a well-off illiterate irish peasant in the middle ages might be happy with his lot, considering himself fortunate with his 2 cabbages a day for his family and 1 day a week shared use of donkey.

It's why even if you don't give a crap about eye candy, having the gee-whiz beryl eye candy turned on your linux desktop can be a good thing - users get interested by the superior eye candy (even if they say they're not), try out linux for a while, and some proportion stay for the superior stability and system coherency (that is to say, everything on linux ultimately makes sense. Yes, it might be only loosely integrated sometimes - but it always does what it says it will, without simultaneously sending your credit card details to korea or something).

Re:Yes

[cayenne8]

"And the fact that it has a reputation as being something only computer geeks "can" use. And the fact that if you want to use any programs on linux you usually have to compile the source yourself. "

I think it is simpler than this. The "average" user...hell, the average person on the street...is an idiot.

Anybody that has worked a job that deals with facing the public (waiter, bartender, sales, etc) can easily attest to this fact. I have to say..I'd never thought that the majority of people out there could be so stupid, but, once you spend some time dealing with the general public, you can without a superiority attitude say honestly that the general public are morons on the whole, and you wonder how they actually live long enough to reproduce.

The average computer 'user' has pretty much only seen windows or if lucky..maybe osx. They do not separate computer hardware from software. The browser, probably IE *is* the internet to them. And their first major accomplishment in the computer world was figuring out how to turn it on.

Linux, like most anything else that might take a bit of intelligence, and motivation to self teach and research, is and probably will be beyond the 'average' user.

Remember how many people you came across that had VCR's with clocks that blinked 12 over and over...'cause they couldn't figure how to set the clock? I rest my case.

Re:Yes

[cyphercell]

And the fact that if you want to use any programs on linux you usually have to compile the source yourself.

BS, they are called repositories.

And the fact that there are no human interface designers working on the linux project.

This is highly offensive, to user interface designers that work on Gnu/Linux.

Microsoft may not do function very well, but their form is getting better, and they have a comparatively simple interface for users.

Microsoft's user interface is not anything unique or special.

And the fact that it has a reputation as being something only computer geeks "can" use.

All software has a reputation as something only geeks can support. You are blurring the difference between "use" and "support". Your post is flamebait and nowhere near informative.

Re:Yes

[FlyingSquidStudios]

Or the fact that Full House had 8 seasons.

Point by point.

[evilviper]

On the whole, users aren't all that dissatisfied with Windows

Yes they are. They just don't know the "operating system" or "Windows" is to blame. It's all "the computer" to them. "Computers" are too much work. "Computers" have too many problems. "Computers" don't do what they want. Tell someone that you can make the "computer" faster, simpler, safer, cheaper, and no longer need to virus scan, defrag, etc., and they'll be quite interested.

Wintel's 90%+ market share has made it such that people don't know there is anything else. They don't know what the hell Linux is, other than perhaps that it's something about a computer.

2 - Too many distros

Does someone put a menu of distros in-front of Windows users and tell them they must pick on they're going to use for the rest of their life? No? I sure don't. I don't tell someone to download a distro, I tell them to download Ubuntu and try it out. No complex choices necessary.

People want certainty that hardware and software will work

You won't get that with Windows anyhow. Buggy drivers and a buggy operating system cause things to go incredibly wrong. It tries to install the wrong driver... It can't see one card unless you remove all others... It can't detect that you have new hardware, etc.

I know my digital camera works infinitely better with GPhoto than the Windows software... It's buggy crap, that requires un-plugging and re-plugging the USB cable before it detects there's something there, and then still might cut off suddenly, or just have absolutely puzzling difficulties communicating with it.

4 - As far as most people are concerned, the command line has gone the way of the dinosaur

And? You shouldn't need it for anything these days. Back in the RedHat 6 days, the GUI configuration software was incomplete and buggy, but everything should be working provided you don't have very special needs.

Linux is still too geeky

No explanation of what this even means. No real examples. etc.

IMHO, Windows is still too tall and lumpy, all over the place. Microsoft should use their software until they find all the lumps.

Re:Point by point.

[evilviper]

My XP box here at work and the 3 I have at home work just fine and have always worked just fine. So, how is it that we have such different experiences? Could it be that you have an agenda? Admit that and maybe I'll bother reading your next post.

You're either a lowsy troll, or perhaps just a bad Microsoft astroturfer. Either way...

Re:Yes

[ozmanjusri]

This is also a major hurdle to people. How is Joe User going to know which of the 30 browsers he should use

Well, fuck me dead, choices to make.

Now that's going to ruin my life and make me bitter forever. You dirty evil FOSS arseholes aren't forcing me to use whatever piece of virus-riddled shit you want to foist on me. How am I going to cope? Tragedy!

For fuck's sake, don't you shills have something better to do?

Re:Yes

[Risen888]

What's an Acrobat?
What's an Excel?
What's a Macintosh?
What's an XP?
What's a Quicktime?
What the fuck is an iPod?

This is the dumbest fucking thing I've read today. I lost three IQ points and forty five seconds on this, and I'd like them back.