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Why Linux Doesn't Spread - the Curse of Being Free
Vlad Dolezal tips us to a philosophical take on why Linux hasn't grown to challenge Windows as the most popular operating system. According to the author, the reason is simple; Linux is free, and humans tend not to equate free things with being valuable.
"Here's what Compy McNewb sees. He can get both OS's for free. But one of them is worth over three hundred dollars, while the other one is worth nothing. 'That's not true!' I hear you scream. 'Linux is worth a lot! It's just being offered for free!' I know it's not true that Linux is worth less than Windows. It's far more valuable to the end user in terms of getting things done. But that's not what Average Joe Computer Newbie sees. He sees a free product versus a three-hundred-dollar product he can get free. It's all about the perception!"
I think the reason doesn't spread is because of the virtual monopoly windows has on the OS market. Linux is difficult to get on a system pre-installed, and its difficult to get a lot of mainstream software on Linux. Games are almost non-existent in any real way because developers just aren't producing for Linux. At the moment, it will take quite a bit for Linux to take hold of the OS market just because Windows has made it so hard to get in.
Fonts look crap so lets see how to install some decent ones..a quick google and after reading several different ways to do it, I'm copying them over from my Windows installation - another 20 minutes. Now, lets set up a shared folder so I can access it from my Vista desktop. Right click on folder, select Share Folder. Goes off and gets another raft of files. Refresh Windows and my laptop shows..all good. Click on the icon for the laptop, user/pass prompt. Try several including guest and the logon for ubuntu and no go. Off we go to Google again and there's a Howto. Only problem is it misses out a few IMPORTANT steps (like saying I have to add a SMB user WTF???) In the end, a post directs me to a Youtube link which shows exactly how to do it. Try to let it share without user/pass and in the end I give up. There's another 45 minutes wasted.
So it's taken me 2 hours just to install BASIC multimedia functionality, some decent fonts and figure out how to share files over a windows network. What makes it worse is there's not just one way to do something but several ranging from completely ridiculous strings of CLI commands to a simple solution but you can bet which one tops the search results. OK, I know how to do it for next time but do you honestly think Average Joe on their first venture into Linux is going to persist as much as I did? Not a chance. Windows "Just works" so that's what they'll go back to. It'll be "Yeah I tried it once but it was just too damned complicated to do anything so I gave up."
And that's why Linux isn't cutting it on the desktop.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Why should anyone invest the time to learn a new product that doesn't do more for them then the product they are currently using? Personally, I'm still using Office 2000. I've used both Office XP and Office 2003 extensively at my prior job, but I really didn't notice the difference between 2000, XP, and 2003. I've also given OpenOffice a try. The thing that really annoyed me to no end with OpenOffice was that I could not grab the edge of my current selection in it's Excel equivalent and drag it in order do the equivalent of a cut and paste of the selection (i.e. move the selection to a new location on the spreadsheet). Apparently I do this a lot, but hadn't really noticed how frequently until I tried OpenOffice and couldn't do it. I use FireFox and Thunderbird for web and mail there so no problem there.
Software Inventor
This article makes a similar point. I kept looking around for it, but I never thought I'd find it on Microsoft's own site :-)
Thats mostly because it is Fedora, and therefore fully free. Have you tried Ubuntu? Things nearly always seem to work better from and end-user's standpoint. Fedora is one of the few big distros that is fully free and therefore requires more work to get simple things done such as install graphics drivers. Fedora is miles behind Ubuntu in terms in usability in my opinion.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
Sounds like you've managed to steer completely clear of Ubuntu, which fulfills exactly the need you're describing here. Try it out, it will probably make you think twice about making a post like this again. I had also turned my back on desktop Linux distributions a handful of times, until Ubuntu finally gave me a user-friendly desktop to stick with.
Joe user != dumb. If someone is knowledgeable enough to have MP3's on their system to play, they are knowledgeable enough to google "play mp3 in ubuntu", hit I'm feeling lucky, and find their answer right there.
As for the wireless, what would do if some piece of hardware didn't work in windows? Get one that does. I recommend Joe does the same, there certainly are plenty of wireless cards that just work in linux.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5... That's the combination on my luggage!
You should run XP. I'm not running AV etc. Yes windows firewall is running... but in general thanks to limited user accounts... I really have no problems with web spam popup/install hijack stuff like your XP setup did.
1&1 - Cheap domain and web hosting.
You should actually try using Linux.
You'll be amazed how trouble free updating ALL of your installed software is.
It'd give you a bit more credibility here as well.
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
For some distros, this is true. But some people just stick to Ubuntu which does all that automatically. I can generally get a fully updated Ubuntu install done in maybe a couple hours, most of which is spent just automatically updating/installing everything.
Your ad here.
Actually, both KDE and GNOME have systrays... I forget whether it's that KDE and GNOME use different protocols, but one understands the other's, or whether they're compatible protocols, but for all intents and purposes, they're common.
And, install stuff on WINE that dumps stuff in the systray, and... you guessed it, WINE puts it in the KDE or GNOME systray.
"there's no way to slipstream or download those for the other 3 computers I'm installing later..."
You could use apt-cacher to save re-downloading it. I've got 4 machines here and only have to d'load any given update once.
"You can't fight in here, this is the war room!"
amsn has webcam capabilities.
research has never caused problems for anyone, maybe you should try it sometimes?
# you don't need to defrag ext2. it doesn't get fragmented
This is misinformation. ext2 (And ext3) _do_ get fragmented. They just don't fragment as badly as other more simplistic filesystems such as FAT.
http://blog.nexusuk.org