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The Next Leap for Linux
Nrbelex writes "The New York Times is taking a look at the state of Linux. "Linux has always had a reputation of being difficult to install and daunting to use. Most of the popular Windows and Macintosh programs cannot be used on it, and hand-holding — not that you get that much of it with Windows — is rare. But those reasons for rejecting Linux are disappearing." The article discusses major PC makers' newest offers and compares them to their Windows counterparts."
Linux can take a flying leap.
-S. B.
Two things make even considering Linux for normal users absolutely prohibitive:
Usability is a nightmare. The UI is cluttered with useless, confusing icons and half of the functions behind them don't even work properly. But configuration is the worst problem, why is it so hard to make a system architecture and drivers that don't require constant hand holding regarding even the most basic settings?
Second, supporting Windows apps is a huge problem, too. For all intends and purposes Wine just doesn't work, at least not of you don't know how to tweak and trick it into doing the right thing. At least SuSE comes with XEN, but it's pretty much unusable. The idea of mere users setting up something that works like Parallels on Mac is just completely out of the question with the way this stuff needs to be configured.
Of course it doesn't help that Linus himself is a big antagonist when it comes to making a system that saves the user some time with useful configuration models and efficient UI.
Who has time and energy to spend days setting up his workstation? (Servers are another matter, they're ridiculously easy to set up!) I'm a fairly good developer and I'm under the comforting illusion that I have at least a basic understanding of what goes on under the hood. So when I say that even I am regularly getting discouraged by the obscene amount of hoops Linux/KDE/whatever make their users jumpf through to get anything done, that should mean something.
And moderators, how the HELL is that lie rated INSIGHTFUL? Oh, we are on slashdot, so we know the level of intelligence we have here.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Christ! How could both of you make the same mistake? It is FEWER keystrokes and FEWER problems.... Are you related?
Well,duh, try to install Linuzzz on a hardware without the controllers drivers... How in hell you will install it then without the drivers on some media? How is that different?
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Sure, whatever you say.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
Be sure to use Ubuntu or some other NEW linuzzz distro. I remember having the same problems with mandrake and even mandriva some years ago. The point is: XP is now what...6 years old... and yes, it had those limitations. In vista you can now choose the source from CD/DVD (just replacing temporarly Vista DVD), or from network if you have configurated the TCP protocol. If your Bios allows you to map a USB drive, this can be selected as well. GP is comparing a 2007 Linuzzz distrubution with a 2002 Windows release. OK, lets compare Vista with Caldera 2.0.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
No wonder Teh Lunix has been putting the pressure on governments to convert to Teh Lunix- because they can easily get whatever money they need to finance the required consultant armada, and they don't care if it's successful or not! It appears the FOSSies don't want Microsoft's success and customer satisfaction... they only want their market share.