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Why Desktop Linux Hasn't Taken Off
alphadogg writes "It's free, easier to use than ever, IT staffers know it and love it, and it has fewer viruses and Trojans than Windows. So, why hasn't Linux on the desktop taken off? When it comes to desktop Linux, the cost savings turn out to be problematic, there are management issues, and compatibility remains an issue. 'We get a lot more questions about switching to Macs than switching to Linux at this point, even though Macs are more expensive,' one Gartner analyst says."
How I am even supposed to begin to recommend Linux for the average user when there are 100 different distros, each with its own quirks and issues? Hell, even I don't have any clue where to begin on which one to recommend. And I sure wouldn't know how to support each one if they had problems.
At least with Windows, I can say "Use Home Premium at home, Professional at work." Even simpler with Macs. With Linux, I guess I would recommend Ubuntu, but a lot of Linux fans are even starting to bitch about that.
If you want simple users, make it simple to use. Linux is way too fractured right now for the average user. Get a consensus down to a single home distro, a single business distro, and a few specialized distros and then start from there.
It would probably also help if you could get Linux users to stop fighting amongst themselves over every little goddamn thing. Outsiders are really turned off by what looks like a bunch of squabbling geeks fighting over their favorite Star Trek series (which we all know is DS9, anyway). Average consumers *do not* like stepping into the middle of a fight which they don't even understand. That's one of the reasons they like Windows and OS X (all the fighting over those is kept behind the scenes, for the most part).
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
Very powerful, virtually nonexistant for Linux on the desktop.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Why do we keep getting these posts that are deliberately chosen to incite flamewars between pro- and anti-Linux people?
Do we need to have more unhelpful arguments like the one yesterday when Samzenpus posted a dupe of a response to a dupe from back at the start of the year?
Most people do not know there is an alternative to windows or that it's as good as windows. Other issues confusion and people trying to fix things that are not broken such as completely redoing gnome in gnome 3 or brain dead things like Unity in Ubuntu which cause Mint to over take it as the most downloaded distro. Android is a good example of what can happen when people are exposed to an alternative OS. It's now the number 1 smart phone OS and Windows phone is more or less a flop.
It's the year 2012, fix sound.
Sound doesn't work out of the box. They have the abomination (IMHO) that is PulseAudio so I do an apt-get purge. Suddenly sound works.
So I go and try to play 2 things at once. [Unless you have ALSA setup a specific way with mixers it won't do it because only one PID gets to talk to hardware at once.] Wow it works. Maybe they started shipping a working ALSA config. I go check /etc/asound.conf. Everything is still set to pulse.
So I check task manager. Sure enough the pulse server is still cranking away. But by purging all the files it somehow magically started to work. So I re-install it.
I repeat the test. Somehow mplayer decides it wants to grab ALSA instead of pulse but ALSA then grabs the hardware, so pulse dies and can't communicate to ALSA (which is actually doing the hardware interfacing if I read my workflow correctly). So now I have no sound, again.
So I try it straight from mplayer specifying the hardware device and it works. Except only in mplayer. So now I'm going to spend another few hours dicking with either the dmix plugin or deciding to give Pulse a 5th chance.
Fork something or start something from scratch. Something like MATE/GNOME2. And make it 'just work'.
Linux works great for Grandma,
Linux works great for IT folks.
Linux sucks in the middle. That is why Linux is Strong in the Server area and in the Mobile Phone area. However lacking in the desktop area.
The key features for the Middle, that isn't really all that easy in Linux.
Adding new hardware. Some stuff just works, other stuff is a real big pain. Mac and Windows (due to its popularity mostly) has the hardware vendors supply them with drivers, or when you get the hardware you have an easy to use install for the drivers. Linux you may be able to find the drivers, but you have many versions and you need to do a lot of research to see which one is going to do what you need it to do.
For example my Wifes Dell Inspiron 9 mini (Netbook) with Ubuntu display 800x600 while the screen native resolution is 1024x600... I cannot use the normal GUI to fix that. The instruction on how to do so, are cryptic and sometimes don't work. while the 800x600 stretched bugs the heck out of me. My Wife doesn't care, so I wont do much to fix it. That is after I spent time to get sound working on it, after an upgrade.
I am sorry but compared to Windows and OS X, Linux is a Free Desktop OS and it shows. Put it in a server great, put it in a phone just as good. The desktop is the troubled area.
Part of the issue I think, is they are spending too much time copying what Microsoft does or what Apple does, and the Open Source democratic structure doesn't have a few good people to say it sucks or it is good.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I know somewhere that had similar issues.
So one guy got smart. He started mentioning how old our version of office was etc. The techies followed with the same mutterings.
After that circulated around, it was announced that we were going to bring in a newer version of Office (nobody said MS Office). By making it sound like an update/upgrade, rather than a newer version, acceptance was greater and everyone actually seemed to like it.
Sucks you are anonymous, you could learn something here.
This is the mindset that needs to die. You dont get it. Most businesses arent in the business of making software. The GPL makes complete sense, you want to enhance a software package, and contribute back to the community, of which you know will also contribute back making everyone have better software so you can get on with YOUR BUSINESS. Think of it as a global software pool that just gets better.
Dont think that can work? Here is a case study for you from real life: Business needs to get its information out to a website, the content is important, Apache, Postgres are simply tools. They pay 50,000 a year for support to a vendor. The vendor provides patches and fixes. At the end of the year, if they have support hours left over, they add "nice to haves", which enhances Apache and Postgres for everyone. There are businesses doing this today, right now, and they are more productive and have better support. Why? Because there is no lock in, they could choose a different support team next year if they weren't satisfied, and the enhancements and bugfixes are coming from everywhere on the planet.
In my work, the number of features of an application I use regularly has increased exponentially, because different business interests are paying to enhance the suite, something we couldn't afford individually.