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Ubuntu 9.04 For the Windows Power User
crazipper writes "Know a Windows power user who is (honestly) good with technology, but hasn't yet warmed to Linux? Tom's Hardware just posted a guide to installing and using Ubuntu 9.04, written specifically for the MS crowd (in other words, it talks about file systems, mount points, app installation, etc). Hopefully, by the end, your 'friend' will realize just how easy Ubuntu can be to use and start down a long path of exploration with a new operating system."
Yessir! If there's one thing that will convince those M$ power users to convert, it's another tutorial about using Ubuntu!
I learnt this lesson the hard way when a close friend decided to ring me at 1am to bug me about a Linux problem. I don't even remember what the issue was, he was just a bit stressed cos he'd spent hours trying to figure something out and I had promised to help him whenever he had problems.
I told him what to do in about three sentences and passed out again. This taught me you don't encourage friends to switch to Linux.
Oh, and Ubuntu is a terrible start to Linux. Debian forever! (seriously: you only install Debian once, beyond that it sorts itself out)
Nick
I hardly see how this is a tutorial for "power users." The article makes out the terminal to be a big bad scary thing, but you'd think that most power users would at least be familiar with Start | Run | "cmd" | "ipconfig".
It's basically a walkthrough of the installation process that goes into more detail about partitions than is necessary. There's only a couple thousand of those floating around the Internet already...
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
As a Windows desktop user who has considerable experience with Linux (I run a bunch of Linux servers and spent some months exclusively with Linux on the desktop), I believe this is the wrong crowd to try to get to switch to Linux. Experienced Windows users simply don't have the problems about which everyone complains about Windows. Windows just works for experienced users who don't install viruses and ad/spyware. Windows hasn't crashed on me since before XP. Ever. Never frozen... nothing. I'm currently on 7, spent a year and a half on Vista, and the rest of the decade on XP (after it was released).
Technically inclined people who aren't programmers simply don't need linux, and programmers will already know about it.
That's my 2 cents.
What would help IMHO is for linux to have advocacy, a marketing department, and general user friendliness polishes.
What would help Linux is to run games without WINE. Or, if you have to use WINE, make the use of it completely seamless. Somebody clicks on a game installer from a CD they put in the drive--"This is a Windows application, but Ubuntu can run this if you install a compatibility layer [don't name WINE by name, nobody cares]. Would you like to install the compatibility layer?" They click yes, you automatically apt-get WINE, launch the app. That alone would help with the grandma cases.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
I'm not an MS fanboy... but using MS dev tools, writing software to work on MS operating systems, and with a user audience where MS software has a nearly-100% market share by choice... is my day job.
As such, I don't have the luxury of time either in or out of my regular work hours to explore other things. I'm busy enough keeping up with current trends on the .NET Framework, which is exactly what the folks who fund my living want and need me to do.
End of story.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
As one example, to install software, I can go on the web, find the primary site for it, make sure it passes malware tests, and install it. On Linux, there's a repository (as I understand, never figured that part out). That may be a technologically superior option, but that means I have to trust the repository buildier. And it's not as though Linux is somehow immmune to malware that lets me skip that step. Anytime I install software it can do something I didn't except, on any OS.
But generally with a repository they have already A) checked the source for malware (most malware scanners only search for patterns in the binary that indicate a virus) B) Tested the software to make sure it is at least (somewhat) working. You have to have trust somewhere unless you are really skilled in writing software purely in binary. With most Linux software you have A) The option of going through the source yourself B) Have a fully open environment C) Have a community that has no profit incentive. The reason of having no profit incentive is good is because they have to compete based on features. MS can cripple software to make a quick buck, trying to do that on Linux just leads someone to move to a better distro.
There are many more paranoid Linux users than paranoid Windows users. Security is a great concern. If Ubuntu was adding in malware in a repository, someone would know and the software would be taken down. A site with a trojan on it for Windows is considered typical. I don't know of a single modern case of malware being in "trusted" repositories (such as Ubuntu's main repository, etc).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
There's everything you can imagine available for linux
Ok, I'm a Linux user and I even think theres a lack of good apps. Sure, the basics are covered, great browser, great file manager, great desktop environments, great e-mail client, decent word processor, decent simple games, great programming features, decent enough replacement for Photoshop, etc. But Linux lacks games. Sure, there are a few shining examples of some in almost every category, Battle for Wesnoth is an amazing strategy RPG, Doom/Quake are good FPS games, SuperTux is a decent platforming game, there are many card games, etc. But you can't really find any complete FPS games that don't use the Doom or Quake engine for Linux. Etc. There is a total lack of variety of games. Sure, you can emulate a lot of them in WINE but more often than not you get a performance hit (not always because of WINE itself but because many distros enable compositing by default and that can slow down the games).
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
apt-get install apache perl php
Funny. I had *precisely* the opposite problem with the tv tuner.
On windows it cmae with this awful, slow, nasty proprietary software that took ages to load, lost the ability to change channel every so often and was a nasty, nasty resource hog. It also took over the entire screen for it's crappy, non-standard front end. And when I re-installed and couldn't find the cd it came with, well that was it done. No chance.
On linux I just fire up kaffeine and away it goes. It's great, responsive and usable.
Sorry you don't like OpenOffice, I prefer it to word now but I know there are rendering differences.
But firefox? I've never had to do anything to FF on linux to get java or flash going. I've never even heard of anyone having java problems with a browser on any platform since 2002...
I know it's not for everyone, but IMHO it's at least the equal of windows now. But then I'm not a gamer, and games are just not made for linux at the moment. It's a vicious circle - It's a small market so few games are made, and because there are few games it stays small...
I think my core issue is this: I'm bored of computers.
I've been using them since early 80s (ZX Spectrum FTW!) and they don't hold much of an interest to me anymore. Hex editing? Done that. Assembly programming? Done that. Writing my own simple 3D engine? Done that, too. Configuring something obscure for weeks and tinkering with configuration files? Done that. In my youth I even had huge-ass ISA cards with a couple dozen relays on each and I used to build things that I'd control with my computer. I've done it all.
For me, the computer stopped being a toy some time ago. When I'm at work, it's a tool that I use to earn money; at home, it's an appliance that plays music (TV is reserved for videos) and lets me browse some sites when I'm bored, or play a game five hours a month. Had I been born a decade later, I'd be a Linux user, I'm absolutely sure of it... But I've just had too much exposure to computers already.
I used to be a power user, but I'm not even an average user anymore, though. I have no idea what drives those... And the kids these days just seem to be interested in playing games.