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Hardy Heron Making Linux Ready for the Masses?
desmondhaynes writes "Is Linux ready for the masses? Is Linux really being targeted towards the 'casual computer user'? Computerworld thinks we're getting there, talking of Linux 'going mainstream 'with Ubuntu. 'If there is a single complaint that is laid at the feet of Linux time and time again, it's that the operating system is too complicated and arcane for casual computer users to tolerate. You can't ask newbies to install device drivers or recompile the kernel, naysayers argue. Of course, many of those criticisms date back to the bad old days, but Ubuntu, the user-friendly distribution sponsored by Mark Shuttleworth's Canonical Ltd., has made a mission out of dispelling such complaints entirely.'"
That's easy, and we've known it for a long time: Yes, and yes.
Convincing the masses to actually install it, now, that's the trick.
It's getting better all the time.
/etc/networking/interfaces file to make it work).
But, unfortunately, it's far from perfect. Ubuntu is and has been good enough for my completely non-computer-literate roommate to use when the system is up and running. But there's no way he could have gotten the wireless working on his own (even in the 8.04 beta, I still had to download and install drivers, then muck around with
Still, the progress is outstanding.
The enemies of Democracy are
Normal people don't install operating systems, they buy a machine in a box at the computer shop. While I agree that Ubuntu is the distribution that is closest to being ready for mainstream desktops, it has to get pre-installed on those machines in order to really break into the mainstream market. So far, it hasn't. Dell went with Ubuntu, but they aren't exactly pushing their Linux offerings. Asus chose Xandros for their Linux machine. HP have chosen Suse (Novell). Their machines are or will be on sale at the local computer shop. I don't think it's any coincidence that both those companies signed patent agreements with Microsoft. I imagine Microsoft's legal team can be pretty scary if 99% of your business is based on selling hardware to run their software.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
As much as i hate games, and hate to admit it, until you can go down the street to your local big box store, buy a game and it 'just work', its not ready for "the masses". "the masses" want to surf porn, buy stuff from ebay and play their stilly computer games.
For actual useful work, in a company with an IT staff, Linux and BSD have been ready for a while now.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Is Linux ready for the masses?"
/. every few months is some sort of indicator.
I think that the fact that this question keeps coming up on
What we do see, however, is that devices like EEE PC are making people aware that there is a choice and that Linux is real. Here in New Zealand we can buy laptops preinstalled with Ubuntu in regular retail shops http://www.dse.co.nz/cgi-bin/dse.storefront/48067b6603694d34273fc0a87f3b067e/Product/View/XC5822. These have been quite popular. They are still quirky: for example setting up wireless is a bit messy (not as slick as windows) and the power management sucks a bit.
I run HH on one of these laptop that came installed with GG. For the most part, I don't think that HH vs GG is much of an issue for adoption. What is important is that distros like Ubuntu are very easy to use/update and that devices like Eee PC are exposing more people to the option. Soon people will be asking for Linux preinstalled on higher spec laptops and we'll see more choice.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"Unix for the masses is here, and it's called OS X. Hardy Heron is difficult to use, poorly documented junk."
So did that detect your RAID array and Wireless card when you installed it on your machine?
You may enjoy three hours of tedium trying to get Xorg to display properly on a new monitor, or god forbid, two monitors. Most people don't.
Now is this the fault of the developers or of the hardware manufacturers? It's the Hardware guys, IMHO, because there is a huge lack of decent drivers for the important hardware. I'm looking at you, ATI. Not to mention, all the 'no name' (or 'cheap') hardware out there (That comes bundled in low-end machines) rarely has Linux drivers. Its either the manufacture does not have enough resources to pump out a Linux driver or they see the Linux community as too small and insignificant to even bother.
A morning without coffee is like something without something else.
No. Leave *SOME* Linux distributions to power users and the server market. But Windows users have the right to an alternative.
The point isn't that a user refuses to edit any configuration file. The point is that the user SHOULDN'T HAVE to edit any configuration file in the first place! Not to mention recompiling packages, building your own rpm's, solve dependency problems, have to complain about drivers not working out of the box...
Since I moved to Linux half a year ago, I've had to do a lot of stuff that the ordinary user shouldn't have to. I would love to just click here and there, and WHILE STILL having options, not have to worry about messing around with the configuration.
Tell me, why the heck are you afraid of ordinary users? Musicians, artists, graphic designers, hardcore gamers... they want something that just works. What do you have against that, and what are you afraid of? If you don't want dumbed-down distributions, don't use them and keep your own distro! Linux uses the GPL license for a reason.
I don't mind using the same operating system than an elitist zealot uses - just not the same computer.
Does Windows have a GUI for configuring all the buttons of a multi-button mouse, or a GUI for configuring touchpads? AFAIK you'd need 3rd party software to do those things.
which is totally what she said
So basically you're saying since Ubuntu added BulletProofX in 7.10, it's ready?
No, no, no. Did OS X work perfectly on this random Dell that you tried to install Hardy on?
Seriously. When you first started using OS X, you bought a new machine that was specifically built to run that OS. Comparing that experience to trying to install Ubuntu on random hardware is absurd. If you want to compare your OS X experience to anything, compare it to a Dell with Ubuntu pre-installed.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
YES!!! Hypothetical: you're new to Linux. Someone tells you to open up a "terminal". OK.... You don't know what a terminal is but it resembles that command line thingy you've seen once or twice (and reminds you of the hackers at the movies). Now you see "sudo". wtf?? apt-get... wtf again. This kind of banter of "just type in garbel garbel garbel" just helps keep our operating system exclusive to us. While I don't think this year is "the year" (has it ever been?), Ubuntu has definitely made things way easier.
So, going back to your question. The average user is not going to understand that sudo mean "execute a command as another user", in this case the super user. Hell, they probably don't even understand what the root user is. They aren't going to understand that "apt-get install" will install packages for them. They also aren't going to understand what the ubuntu-restricted-extras package is. We can tell them to copy and paste this, but this reminds me of the "if you give a man a fish" cliche.
So what can they do instead? Well, this is where good package management software starts to show where linux has been advancing in the "average user" realm. I'm on a Gutsy laptop right now typing this. In hopes of not disproving my point, I opened add/remove. I typed in "mp3" in the search box. The first result was the restricted-extras package, which according to it's subtitle is "codecs to play mp3, sid, mpeg1..." :) However, I think this wouldn't have shown up with the default repositories enabled. But, according to Ubuntu Brainstorm the needed repositories will be enabled by default in Hardy. The terminal is a powerful and efficient tool. Yes, if I know the name of the package I want I use apt-get. But I do this because at this point I know what "sudo" and "apt-get" means. Telling new users to do it this way takes them out of their comfort zone. It's not necessary and doesn't teach them anything. For more anger about resorting to the terminal, I refer you to an excellent (NSFW) Mark Pilgrim rant.
In no way do I want to disparage the efforts of all people working on various Linux distributions - especially not Ubuntu, who have probably put in more than anyone in recent times - but it seems to me that the mob that has done the most to bring Linux to the masses is Asus with their eeePC laptop.
1) They've put it on a desirable, useful, practical, cheap ultra-portable laptop that people want for its size and neat-ness (and low cost)
2) They've made it simple to use and focused on the core applications and best parts of Linux
3) They've made it open source (well, maybe not by choice) and accessible for developers
4) They've solid millions of them, in a single stroke bringing Linux-to-the-desktop to more users than (I would guess?) ever before.
5) Probably most importantly, they've scared the living SHIT out of Microsoft who are now scurrying around trying to get a lightweight version of XP together to match it, which is almost 100% the opposite of what they're trying to do everywhere else (ie, make people buy Vista).
Why would I spend hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring people and setting up the facilities to create a product that is probably not going to make me enough money to cover said expenses?
What the hell does that have to do with whether you have open source drivers or not?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
As a power user, I would love for Linux to be mainstream. The more mainstream it gets, the more likely my video drivers are to work, and the more likely I am to have some decent games to play.
As a server administrator, I would love it if all of our developers ran Linux on their desktops. It's still possible to run into surprises deploying from Windows on their workstations (read: laptops) to Linux on the server.
Here's the cool part: It's not up to you.
The thing is, Linux -- or, more generally, all open source software -- is for everything and everyone. If there's anyone who can't use it, or anything it can't yet do, that's just another problem to be fixed by anyone who has the time.
And no one can stop it. You can't make it into your 31337 high-school h4x0r club anymore. It's much bigger than that, now.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I'm typing this on an ASUS EEE PC and loving it. All my linux-centric frustrations seems to be unable to happen on this tiny machine. Guess it doesn't support it. :)
Want my suggestion? Go for more generic names in the apps. In Windows, it's "add/remove programs". In Linux, the closest thing I can think of is the oddly-named "synaptic". If you tell grandma to run "synaptic" to install something, it just creates more confusion.
Stop prefixing things with "K" just because it's for KDE or whatever. Stop with the ultra-shortened names for full-blown applications, with 3-4 decimal points for versions.
Don't tread into copyright infringement with exact names for things, but moreso something a bit more streamlined. "GIMP" is guilty of over-acronymizing(with a recursive acronym in the acronym), and just sounds goofy. Perhaps a tiny bit of marketing at least on the app names will help things a bit.
Oh man, not these tired old arguments again. I have mod points and I was going mod this down, but I'm in a charitable mood and feel like feeding some trolls today.
Want to use your favourite software (photoshop, dreamweaver, GTA 4 etc: nope, that's for windows and/or mac only.
The Linux software ecosystem is rife with applications that perform the same task as their popular proprietary counterparts. Some of them aren't quite up to par (Gimp), some are roughly equivalent (OpenOffice), and some are leagues better (Firefox). There are more and more proprietary applications being ported to Linux all the time.
If your argument is that there are specific software packages that can't run on Linux, well, the same is true for both Windows and Mac. There are many Mac applications that you simply can't buy for Windows and we all well know that the reverse is true.
Neither Mac or Windows come with a system where you can browse from a catalog of over 10,000 applications and install any one of them instantly, for free, with the click of a mouse button.
Want to buy new hardware... well you can if you scour the internet for days finding out if it's compatible; you can't just pop down pcworld one saturday afternoon and pick something up and know it'll work.
This hardware myth really needs to be put to rest. Linux supports a wider variety of hardware than any other operating system on the planet. True, there can be a delay between the time that a new device is released and the time that a common Linux distribution supports it. It's also true that some hardware vendors refuse to release their hardware specifications or even cooperate in any way with open source developers but these are very much the exception these days rather than the rule. If you think Windows supports hardware any better than Linux then you have either not used Vista yet or have somehow managed to be the only person on the planet who has never fought with Windows over printer, video, or wifi driver issues at some point.
Want to install some software... sure... if you broadband no problem...
Ubuntu and many of its derivatives will ship you a copy of their OS on CD at no charge. No media fees, no shipping and handling. Free. Most of the software that you can install afterward is not at all too large to pull down via a dialup modem. Windows and OS X cost hundreds of dollars each. I would say that I put my money where my mouth is, except that I don't have to spend any of it on Linux at all.
oh, but it might install the software anywhere on your system... good luck learning to grep it.
Not sure what you mean here. On KDE- and GNOME-based distributions, a shortcut to every installed application gets put into the applications menu. Which, by the way, is sorted by the software's function so everything is easy to find. Contrast with Windows where each application goes into its own folder or a folder named after the company that distributed it. Install enough applications and the Start menu becomes large and unusable. Contrast also with Mac, where you have to dig down into a special (and also unsorted) Applications folder to find newly-installed apps.
Fat chance if your friend has just given you a cdrom with software on it!
Why, you don't have any friends?
Okay, unprofessional personal attack aside, Linux-using friends are more likely to give you a URL than a CD-ROM. If someone's giving you a CD-ROM with Windows or Mac software on it, there's a good chance it's warez anyway unless they're in the habit of giving away their legitimate software.
want to play games.... err... well... no.. not really, but hey we've got solitaire!!!
There is, admittedly, a noted lack of high-profile games natively available for Linux. However, there are some good ones available. Recent versions of Quake and Unreal Tournament run fine natively.
I'd say that distributions like Ubuntu is exactly as user-friendly as OS X.
If you use supported hardware and don't want to customize the OS in non-supported ways, everything just works.
Trying to use OS X on badly supported hardware? Needs system-file tinkering and thorough knowledge of how the system works.
Trying to use Ubuntu on badly supported hardware? Needs system-file tinkering and thorough knowledge of how the system works.
The biggest difference is that Ubuntu usually isn't bundled together with 100% compatible hardware like OS X and, most of the time, Windows are.
To get a "apple to apple" comparison between operating systems you'd have to compare how easy they are to install and run on hardware that is 100% supported by the OS out of the box.
Or the other way around, compare them on hardware that isn't supported out of the box. =)
/.Mattsson - My native language is not English, so please don't whine over linguistic errors. (That's lame anyway...)
I disagree. First let me say, I use both systems on the desktop daily (and have both in front of me right now). I also have formal education in and have worked in the field of user interface design and usability testing for disparate systems over several years.
I agree that not having the hardware vendor polish an install for their system is a huge source of usability issues. Most users never install an OS, and if you give someone a pre-configured system with OS X or Linux, you've solved a lot of their problems already.
That being the case, however, Linux still has some significant usability issues for many many, workflows and tasks. Linux is outstandingly usable for super-power users who need/want to create highly customized and specialized workflows and are not afraid of learning new interfaces. Linux is fairly usable for a very novice user who has a very limited number of tasks and workflows (Web, e-mail, word processing, playing CDs). It still has some interface issues, but it also has a few usability wins in this regard (such as at the task of keeping this core software up to date). They obviously have not, however, done the extensive usability testing Apple does, but they've hit most of the low hanging fruit for very novice users.
Linux has a lot of usability and interface issues when it comes to in between users. People who want to add new hardware (webcam, fancy trackball, stylus, braille board, or whatever) are more likely to have usability problems and not just because of lack of drivers. People who want to install and run software for specific more advanced uses such as: video editing, audio recording/mixing, 3D and vector graphics, publishing, or most commercial software like big games and other payware, still have significant usability problems. People still have significant problems trying to perform some common, but advanced tasks: creating a restricted user account for guests, migrating an installed system to new hardware, or sending a friend some software you have installed (but which is not in the repository), or enabling more advanced user interface features.
In short I understand and agree with your point about hardware, but I disagree in general about Linux being as usable as OS X for the gamut of end user tasks. I don't think any Linux on the desktop developer invests significantly in usability testing (based upon their resulting products) and I don't think they will catch the last 20% or so of problems until they do. I don't think they've even done enough work to address some of the fairly obvious problems that you can find and correct without such testing.