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Should Being Competitive With Windows Matter For Linux?
An anonymous reader writes "Is Linux being held back by distributions bent on competing with Microsoft Windows? This article argues that it's a real possibility. Quoting: '... what was apparent early on during my Linux adoption was my motivation for making the switch in the first place — no longer wanting to use Windows. This is where I think the confusion begins for most new Linux adopters. As we make the switch, we must fight the inherent urge to automatically begin comparing the new desktop experience to our previous experiences with Windows. It's a completely different set of circumstances, folks. ... The fact that one platform can support a specific device while the other platform cannot (and so on) doesn't really solve the problem of getting said device working. You can see where this dysfunction of thought can become a big problem, fast."
Linux has a 90% share in supercomputers, a 50% share in servers (+/- 10%), and a pretty good share of cell phones and other mobiles, if you include Android and other semi-proprietary systems. The only place to expand into it the desktop, where the market share is at most 5%. So, why not?
can be anything we want it to be. It is, after all, open source and can be modified to suit many different purposes. Should Linux compete directly with Windows? That's a stupid question. Linux should do what the user wants and if that happens to put it on a collision course with Windows then so be it.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
Also if you want to compete EFFECTIVELY it does mean trying to do the things that Windows can do.
"The things Windows can do" are things that pretty much every OS+UI been able to do for damn near twenty years. There's nothing magical there, and yes, obviously any desktop OS needs to be able to do those things. The problem is that a lot of people working on Linux distros and software seem to have the idea that "competing effectively" means copying, rather than trying to find a better way to do things.
Look, nobody will ever be as good (or bad) at being Microsoft as Microsoft is. Try to make your UI look like Windows, or your word processor look like Word, and you're not going to fool anyone. Most users aren't going to be impressed at what a great job you've done reverse-engineering Microsoft's crappy standards. They're just going to say, "Why should I go with a knockoff when the original comes free* with my computer?" Chasing anyone's tail, in any industry, is usually a losing proposition. Chasing the tail of a lame, half-blind, diarrhetic horse just means you don't get anywhere very fast and end up covered in shit.
*Yeah, I know. From a marketing perspective, the "Windows tax" makes no difference at all to the vast majority of computer buyers. Deal with it.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
3) all settings files SHOULD be hidden from normal users, be it the registry files, config files or whatever other settings files, if a NORMAL user has need of these to be exposed then the developers have FAILED.
Wrong, or at least I hope to the powers that be that this is wrong.
It is FAR EASIER to open a config file (with comments if it's complicated) and change what I need than to dig through a maze of tabs and menus looking for the magic option I want.
"This is exactly what's wrong."
No, it's exactly what's right. Linux is not ever going to have a "one-true distro", no matter how much you demand it.
If that means that 'ordinary' people aren't going to use it then I can't say it bothers me, not in the slightest.
Hell, 'normal' people aren't even going to install a new OS on their computer, ever. In a lot of ways that makes this discussion completely irrelevant as the people who need to be persuaded are manufacturers and distributors, not users. If the likes of Dell started to offer something like Ubuntu as a Windows alternative across a decent proportion of its range (instead of offering only a few, generally pretty poor machines) then that would help adoption I suppose.
But as I say, it's kind of irrelevant. Desktop linux is awesome for my needs and somehow development has struggled on and improved for 15 or so years.
So what if it's not the year of the linux desktop?