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Samsung Won't Release Windows RT Tablet In US
New submitter sandoval88419 writes "During CES the U.S. head of Samsung Tablet business announced they won't release Windows RT devices in the U.S. Explanations are low demand, heavy investment to educate the consumer on the differences between windows RT and 8 and more importantly the effort to keep a low retail price with the Microsoft offering. "
Not that I wanted Windows RT
I heard they'd cost an ARM and a leg...
Funny the Slashdot community skipped right over the news Microsoft sold 60 million licenses so far. this place really is the fox news of tech.
You don't become the leading smartphone manufacturer by being a sucker.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I thought it was clear enough that Windows RT is to be the Windows version for ARM tablet devices that will compete directly with iPad and Android tablets.
What's not clear about it. Looks like Samsung is strong-arming Microsoft for something else.
none
heavy investment to educate the consumer on the differences between windows RT and 8
I still think it was an absurdly foolish decision not to make Windows 8 and Windows RT obviously and distinctly separate products. Call it Windows Tablet or something. Even for people who do know the difference (8 = 7 with a wider start menu, RT = locked down tablet OS), you often need to drill down to the 'tech specs' page when looking at tablets in order to tell whether it has a useful OS or not.
Someone big needs to jump into the desktop area with both feet and Linux will win.
Look at virtually every other computing market: servers, mobile, embedded, etc. Linux dominates.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
Now how many convertibles were there? Every big store I've been too have about as many convertible windows 8 machines as they do other 10" tablets. If you're charging $680 for Core i tablet, you may as well make it $700 and add a foldable or detachable keyboard.
From what I gather, the budget x86 Windows 8 tablets having been waiting on the new low power atoms
Grandma bought Microsoft Office and it says right on the box "designed for Windows 8". She bought a Windows 8 machine from you. Explain to grandma how she didn't just get ripped off. Remember she has no clue what "x86" is.
Further, explain to ANYONE why they should spend $400 on a WinRT tablet that's less functional than a $180 Android tablet.
Until very recently computing has all been utilising the benefits of this year's more powerful and more resource hungry x86 processor. Relatively cheap laptops are more powerful than supercomputers 15 years ago but the user experience is not particularly more responsive because software gets increasingly bloated.
ARM devices are really a different proposition, on the plus side they have no moving parts and a long battery life, however they are a very different architecture to x86, and making the OS perform well requires lots of differences. Linux (and therefore android too) was always built to be a modular system and one thing it does well is support different platforms with many compatible but swappable components at every level. The world's top supercomputers and the £25 Raspberry Pi both happily run Linux.
Windows is very different. It is a set of very tightly integrated libraries, which has its benefits, but they all need to be scaled down to work on ARM, you cannot just swap out some resource hungry component for some open source project because the system is so interdependent. Scaling down software is much harder than scaling it up.
Therefore I am not suprised that Samsung found Windows' ARM version slow and resource hungry. Just because Windows dominated the x86 era, it does not mean it will be suitable for the new and disruptive ARM age.
My little Linux and tech blog
Actually, aside from the US, why would Samsung even do an RT tablet anywhere, when they have one of the most successful Android products in both the Galaxy phone & the Galaxy tab?
If they wanted, it might make sense for them to do an Atom/Fusion based Windows 8 tablet, and that would probably be the only good platform for Windows 8 in that it will be able to run Wintel apps as well.
Windows RT will be an even bigger fiasco than either Windows NT on RISC (Alpha, MIPS) or Windows Server 2008 on Itanium ever was.
I recently purchased a Samsung ATIV Smart PC at Best Buy for $699.
It has an Intel Cedar Trail processor and runs full Windows 8.
It's very fast, has amazing battery life and it can run literally **Millions** of programs.
For $200 more, it's a no brainer.
What is there is a reduced functionality subset that has the same name just to confuse you.
Samsung is not bringing the latest Galaxy either because of Apple. Sometimes losing is cheaper than fighting in court as Apple are frankly assholes who already sued and won $ 1,000,000,000 judgement already. The shareholders will not put up with that anymore.
If this is not proof that Apple is far more evil than MS I do not know what is. At least in 2013 my anti-MS zealotry I had 12 years ago is gone. I used to post comments opposite of what I write today about the evils of MS.
But today I want to see more WindowsRT tablets to keep Android, IOS, and Webkit in check for a healthier marketplace. I doubt MS will be what it once was with this competition but I believe we all benefit even if we are loyal IOS or Android users.
A shame as Samsung made fine phones and tablets
http://saveie6.com/
$200? The average selling price is $799. Yeah, you can get it at AT and T for 100 dollars less with a two year contract! They are not cheap!
OEM buys the licenses beforehand.
All MS has to do is say "Ok, instead of having 1 months supply of Windows 8 licenses I need you to buy 5 months ahead of time!"
Then MS releases a press release saying "OMG DEMAND FOR WINDOWS 8 WENT UP 500%!" Intentionally, exgerated of course but that is my point. We all know the accounting tricks of Vista numbers where people and businesses bought them but wiped them and downgraded to XP.
Online website counters are the real way to predict adoption. If anyone is interested in the real number of people *actually using* windows 8 click here from statcounter who checks millions of websites each day? Windows 8 was 2% the last I looked. In comparison Windows 7 jumped 3x more in the same time period 3 years ago!
In otherwords it is a dud.
http://saveie6.com/
If you dump mass licenses of W8 to OEMs with W7 downgrade rights this is going to happen. They save up millions of licenses and bring down their costs - they have to to remain competitive. But this has nothing to do with which version of the software gets delivered to the customer, nor how popular it is.
Go to dell.com or HP.com and look at their premium desktops. Windows 7 gets top billing still and Windows 8 is an option. In HP's case there are more preconfigured options with SUSE Linux than Windows 8. In Dell's case not one system comes with Windows 8 by default.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Pretty sure it'd be at best 5th. RIM and Symbian might be dying but WinRT was stillborn
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
2.89% as of today. According to stat counter, windows 8 is growing at about the same rate windows 7 was growing in the month leading up to oct 26 (a little faster actually). Since oct 26 windows 7 has been declining. So much for the theory that everyone is buying windows 8 machines and downgrading. These stats also include all the hundreds of millions of computers sold since 2009, growth in internet traffic, as well as iPad and android stats. So how many machines is 2.89%? We don't know. But it's clear windows 8 is growing and growing steadily, no matter the naysaying here on slashdot.
Wait, what?
Does that orange line look like "declining" to you?. And Win8 is lumped together with "Others" at 3%.
Dude, I can see you're an MS zealot from your posts history, but at least try bullshitting about something less easily verifiable.
Someone big needs to jump into the desktop area with both feet and Linux will win.
Not really. Linux still lacks 3rd party support, and without that, no matter how big the push, it will fail. Yes, more use would spur 3rd party development, but without 3rd party support getting more use would be a nasty uphill battle.
Also, no matter how much /. users rant about Linux being usable now, it still doesn't really compete with OS X or Windows 7-8 in that arena yet. I install various flavors of Linux every year just to see if they are ready to replace Windows (and previously OS X, before I retired those boxes), at least on our non-business computers (no Lightroom or Photoshop, no go for me, nothing 100% comparable with Office, no go for my girlfriend), and non-gaming computer. Linux has made improvements, but it still isn't ready. I still have to dip into the CLI from time to time, I still have to use software designed by programmers, for programmers (ugly, horrible UI, no concept of user-friendly, or differing work-flows), I still had to edit some configs to get basic sound to work and to set up network sharing with a diverse LAN (sharing between Linux boxes, with different distros, three Windows boxes with different versions, and an OS X box/htpc). The biggest distro, and biggest DE took massive steps to kill usability (Bigger than Windows 8, even), and the other major DE is so arcane than I still haven't figured it fully out in 10 years.
Yes, there are other DEs and Distros, but this confuses most people. They don't want to bother with spending the first month getting their computer functional.
Worse is the community. Yes, thanks to Ubuntu there some nice Linux nerds out there, but you still get elitist wankers telling you to RTFM, or "learn the hard way". Far more than there are in Windows or Mac land, at least.
I wish Linux was there. But the only thing that would ever make it get there is to basically kill itself and is ideals. It needs to take away some freedom, it needs to simplify and focus not on engineers and programmers, but slick form-and-substance applications, it needs to settle on a standard UI, and a standard distro. That UI and Distro need to stop giving a shit what Linux users want, and how RMS feels about things. It has to stop caring about "freedom" at the expense of usability and compatibility. All of this would cost money, so it also has to stop caring about being free, probably. Open Source ethics would be a liability too, since it scares the nice capitalists who make computing useful.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Yes, it is has been declining since Oct 26. Here is how the data looks on a daily basis: http://i.imgur.com/hNPSv.png
The blue line is before Windows 8 launch, the red line is after. Windows 7 was at an all time weekly high the week of Oct 26, when Windows 8 was launched. It's been going down steadily since then (minus some distortion due to holidays, but it's now just about back on the original trajectory started on Oct 26).
As for Windows 8, the stats are broken down when you download the CSV data.
Now that Steam runs on Linux, imagine an x86 Android with Steam games. It wouldn't take much more than that to steamroller things since Microsoft lowered the bar so much with 8.
Should you use the term "no brainer" to describe a computer? Doesn't that defeat the point?
Microsoft is releasing their new Surface devices in the wrong order. Instead of bringing RT devices to market, and then Windows 8, they should've ONLY released full Windows 8 devices, let people become familiar with the dual paradigm, waited for the app store to fill up nicely, THEN came out with the RT devices, which would be much more appealing if they had plenty of software available, and if people were already accustomed to getting things done in RT mode.
As things are now, RT has been tainted, possibly irreparably. Maybe it could be saved if it had the ability to run Windows Phone 8 apps. Why that was not part of the plan seems like a huge failure to me.
There are two kinds of people: 1) those who start arrays with one and 1) those who start them with zero.
One has a Windows operating system, the other has a Windows operating system. So yes, I have good reason to expect the desktop app to run on the tablet. Unless they don't share an architecture, of course. But do I know about architectures?
Not all games for the original Xbox run on Xbox 360 because of the different architecture. Microsoft tried to push out emulators to run the popular ones, but it never achieved more than about half coverage. And only those PlayStation 3 consoles sold soon after launch can run PlayStation 2 games.
Win 8 is Microsoft's doom, Apple is closing up their machines, will Linux finally rise to the desktop occasion and save us all?
At Frys yesterday nobody was buying Windows 8 machines. Nobody. Looking but not buying. Buying tablets, yes, and mostly Android tablets at that, from what I could see. Ah, and the Windows 8 tablets. Growing cobwebs, truly. They are so fat and heavy, people pick them up and put them right down again. I was also impressed at how many people weren't buying iPad minis. Something about "not retina".
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
Because they are working on Tizen based ones...with an illusion it will sell.
Symbian isn't dead... only recently has Samsung exceeded Nokia's sales, and Nokia still sells more handsets than Apple. Even in smartphone sales (a subset of cellphone sales), Nokia isn't far behind Samsung and Apple.
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/416666/20121219/samsung-tops-mobile-phone-market-2012-nokia.htm
linux does need a few more big players like adobe or autodesk (good luck with that) but i did hear a rumor that blizzard may be getting fed up with microsoft and its windows 8 changes and releasing one of its popular titles for linux this year... which could make a big noise
lightroom and photoshop are replaceable by things like darktable and gimp if you're willing to put the same amount of effort learning them as you already have lightroom and ps... the problem is you are affected by your status quo, which is fine, but new generation users aren't and an ever increasing number are starting with these from the beginning instead of wasting their money on bloated adobe products (lightroom doesn't even have hardware acceleration for crap's sake, whereas darktable does and it's lightning fast even on an average spec machine). heaps of photoshop lusers bag gimp as being substandard, but that's just because they don't have a clue. gimp is by experts for experts... ps is popular with businesses and universities because it focuses more on ease of use (which doesn't equate to productivity but many think otherwise because they aren't aware of gimp's features, plugins and shortcuts).
Linux is still definitely an OS for enthusiasts and power users, with user-friendliness and eye-candy often taking a back seat to all the more important stuff like functionality, efficiency, reliability, etc.
The community is often targeted as "elitist", but given it consists mostly of volunteers who give up their time to help with solving real problems, the RTFM responses come about merely because they aren't limited by customer relations requirements... do you really think behind all the polite corporate support calls there isn't a heap of ridicule and RTFM banter? just because they are paid to be nice doesn't mean they have any respect for you, or that they are really helphing you... they are often only making you more dependent and unable to think for yourself. sometimes people need to be told to RTFM because they don't get the message any other way, and if you troll the forums, you'll often find that those asking the questions that don't get the answer they want are the ones being rude and unappreciative. The community is what made linux what it is, and it deserves a little more credit and respect.
"It needs to take away some freedom, it needs to simplify and focus not on engineers and programmers, but slick form-and-substance applications, it needs to settle on a standard UI, and a standard distro"... if that happens, the community that gives its time freely to improve linux will abandon linux in droves (for something else that restores or maintains these freedoms). Debian is one of the oldest distros that drives a lot of linux development (including ubuntu) and it will likely never move away from its freedom ideals. Companies can port and derive and add on their own closed extensions, but Debian sits at the top of a very large distribution tree and it will always have a decent amount of clout in the politics of linux (if redhat is like the republican party, debian is like the democrats).
Capitalists aren't scared of linux... on the contrary... they embrace it because it comes with less risk to business than microsoft products. You'll find that the bigger a company gets, the more likely they are to go with linux for critical infrastructure like servers. Hardware manufacturers of things like tvs, routers, set top boxes, etc can install linux without any concern for royalties squandering profits and they have less restrictions on how they can use it.
that would be offensive to jim morrison and countless bong-chuffing bikies... very dangerous for microsoft
smart
I agree, the Blizzard news is very nice. I am hopeful that between Blizzard and Valve they start pulling more people towards Linux. While I don't think Linux is "there" yet, I would love to see more major players in the OS market, and the old nerd in me really wants the "year of the Linux Desktop" to come, just so /. shuts up about it.
I haven't really checked out Darktable, and I will read up on it. Lightroom (and Aperture, more so) are really kind of crap products. They work, I spend ungodly hours in Lightroom and get very good results, but I don't really enjoy a second of it. I feel like I'm fighting Lightroom more than my own mostly sub-par photography skills. Maybe Gimp has made some strides, but last I used it (about a year and a half ago) it still wasn't quite there yet, especially if your using it to get money. I can get past the UI, even if manipulation doesn't feel as smooth as Photoshop, but it isn't really matching the technology arms race. The content aware stuff Adobe has is pretty awesome. Further whats dragging The Gimp down, much like Linux office suites, is compatibility and the fact that they are fighting a de facto standard. Businesses want Photoshop skills, not Image Manipulation skills. The Gimp has improved, a lot, over the years, and is perfectly usable for most normal applications, but it has a hard time competeing with something people are required to use (just like Libre Office versus MS Office, except the Gimp is actually a better bit of software than LO),
The problem is that the RTFM stuff works with users like me and you. It utterly fails with people like my Mom and Dad, and around 50 of my non-techie friends. They don't grasp the basic conventions, much less the sort of stuff you need to think about in a config file. Hell, my dad, despite years of my time, still doesn't get hierarchical directory structures, which is probably one of the most basic things in computers. If he doesn't get the simplicity of Windows structures, how is he ever going to understand the arcane hodgepodge of *nix structure? OS X has the same problem, but it is well enough developed for end users that you probably will never had to dig into any of them.
The one large strength of Linux in trying to gain acceptance is that there isn't A Linux, there are Linux' (yes, I'm mangling this, but for the sake of simplicity bear with me). You have Debian, then you have Ubuntu. The "hardcore" enthusiasts still to Debian, and improve it, and all that trickles down to the "softcore" land of Ubuntu. This is fine. What is needed though is something that is purely for users. If we want acceptance we have to alienate the Linux people to some extent, since what my Dad wants in a computer is very different than what most Linux nerds want. This is the primary hurdle. All of Linux' problems, from a typical users point of view, spring from the fact that Linux is for nerds by nerds. I know how to use a computer, so I don't really care how well you conceal the "scary" bits. But for most people those bits are just plain scary.
The last paragraph was a bit facetious. Yes, certain corporations in certain fields love Linux. But certain corporations that most people like, hate it. Netflix, Microsoft, etc... People don't want to run a server, or manage code or databases, they want to watch crappy movies, play games, and listen to music. These companies either hate, or are apathetic to Linux. I've heard the phrase "Linux users expect free, so they won't pay" too many times, its an actual meme. Yes, the Humble Bundle shows that Linux people are willing to pay, but its hard to kill a meme with facts.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
Yeah but nokia pretty much are phasing out whatevers left of that line in the bargain basement. Developers hate it, and nokia goofily threw all sorts of roadblocks in the way of adopting that god forsaken OS anyway. Heck the way things are looking ,other than the odd delusional pundit who still thinks blackberry is going to make a triumphunt return, Nokia will probably be on the droid bandwagon too soon anyway.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
...and yet despite all its flaws and whatever nokia is doing, it still sells like hotcakes
re: "If he doesn't get the simplicity of Windows structures, how is he ever going to understand the arcane hodgepodge of *nix structure?"
windows is just as complex as linux, if not more so because it is full of dialogs rather than everything being available from a single command. again, the reason why most people (especially older people) feel that windows is easy and linux is just too hard is because they have grown up around windows. its the same as the lightroom/darktable comparison. if you accumulated all the hours that you have spent learing (and battling with) windows, you would find that they add up to a lot, and if you dedicated the same hours to linux you would be just as proficient (if not moreso because there is less to hinder you). most are reluctant to change because change is hard and our status quo rules. windows seems easy because we are familiar with it. i've read about how old people who have never touched a computer found linux (ubuntu in most cases) easier to get around than windows, and even old people who are somewhat familiar with windows xp found the latest ubuntu easier to work than windows 8 (not that i'm really saying much there admittedly).
re: "The one large strength of Linux in trying to gain acceptance is that there isn't A Linux"
there actually is "A Linux", and it is being taken advantage of en mass; the linux kernel. the kernel alone is where linux stands out in the crowd. the kernel is like a foundation that is strong enough to allow you to build just about anything on it, and can be used to make something massive, or make something that must take up very small space (such as in embedded). the linux kernel does all the work of hardware compatibility so that applications can be developed without worrying too much about what processor architecture you're using etc, so don't be confused by what you see on the screen. the flexibility of linux allows anyone to create their own user experience, and they have with many different flavors/distributions, but this is really a strength, not a weakness. if you are really complaining about too much choice with linux, then you need to sit back and think about what you really want, because you are free to try them all and they won't cost you a dime (except for downloading of install images). if you want ease of use, try ubuntu. if you want stability, try debian. if you want minimalist, try xfce, but there are many others that do the same. you can't really go wrong. this choice will ultimately lead to the success of linux, not its demise. linux is like the ron paul of the OS world... where other operating systems are ranting and raving about how good they are and trying to say or do whatever they think users want, linux is the underdog with a loyal and slowly but continually expanding fanbase that can only get bigger even when the others fail loudly. linux wont die and it will continue to improve. you can be sure of that.
re: "People don't want to run a server, or manage code or databases, they want to watch crappy movies, play games, and listen to music"
its funny how the things that many people take for granted depend on technologies they may not even be aware of... more and more the crappy movies, games and music that people want are being streamed off the web, which requires huge datacenters full of (in many cases) linux blades. users pay to download content, and its often cheaper for the service provider to host the content on a datacenter full of rhel blades, so for online service providers it is more profitable to host on linux. i read @ http://www.securitronlinux.com/bejiitaswrath/freebsd-operating-system-adopted-by-netflix-for-hosting-and-what-linux-needs-to-improve-on/ that netflix hosts on freebsd servers, but linux and freebsd share similar philosophies, and someday netflix may move to linux as well. consumers are often ignorant of what they are really paying
windows is just as complex as linux, if not more so because it is full of dialogs rather than everything being available from a single command.
I'm talking about file structure. I've been using Linux on-and-off for years and I'm still not 100% sure of where everything is, and what every directory is actually for. It isn't unfamiliarity, its just arcane for using it as a PC and not a server. Windows was pretty much made for people like my parents, Linux was made for servers, and running workstations. More specifically, its ancient Unix roots are showing.
I don't know about Darktable yet, I bookmarked it to try later. It does look pretty good though. But you have to admit that most Linux programs aren't made in the same way as Windows or OS X programs. Win/Mac programs are made for users first and foremost, they spend lots of money on usability and aesthetics. Linux programs, for the most part, are made by freelance nerds, for the use of nerds. It isn't familiarity, Linux is supposed to be functional, while Mac/Win are supposed to be easy. My parents (and increasingly me, as I age) will always pick the latter.
Yes, Linux is the kernel, but this doesn't matter one bit to most people. An OS is it UI and conventions, to 99% of the population. None of the normal people I associate with know what a kernel is. None of them probably care. They want something that mimics the properties of Windows or OS X, and can run all that software they like, or their friends run.
I'm not saying Linux is bad. I love Linux, and I agree with most of your statements. The Linux kernel is an absolutely awesome thing. But, I'm not talking about the internal merits of various kernels, I'm talking about usability, and ease of use for normal folk. Familiarity is a big part of this, yes, a person new to computers should have no problem picking it up, but most people don't want to re-train themselves to do something they've been doing for years in a different way, for the same results.
if you are really complaining about too much choice with linux, then you need to sit back and think about what you really want, because you are free to try them all and they won't cost you a dime
I don't mind. But my father would. Why go through 3 distros or DEs, when you can just buy a Windows PC or a Mac? I actually find it a fun passtime to try various distros and DEs, but I'm a nerd. I don't mind trying to figure out new things (as long as it isn't Unity or Gnome Shell), I've pretty much played and worked on every OS out there now. But, I'm not my dad, who still can't figure out what "tabs" are, or that you can have more than one windows open, or what "drag and drop" means.
I think we're talking cross purposes here. I'm not saying Linux will, or should die. I'm just saying that it isn't really ready for a family computer yet. I hope Linux lives a long time, and I hope that people like those running the Ubuntu and Mint projects keep forcing things to improve, on a user level. I hope that Valve and Blizzard do start supporting Linux development, hopefully spurring more publishers to hop on. In my fantasy world, Linux would share 1/3 of the market with Windows and OS X, and devs would focus on cross comparability instead of lock-in and DRM.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
i think you're right that linux isn't all there yet for home use, but with reference to your original post, i think microsoft is facing the nasty uphill battle.
it certainly won't fail even without 3rf party support. the only question for publishers like blizzard is at what market share they think they can make enough sales to justify a linux port, and apparently that point is within sight (possibly this year).
if win8 doesn't pick up, the cost of migrating to the win8 ecosystem may exceed its benefits, with publishers opting to continue pushing sales for win7, and broadening their markets to mac and linux. depends on the app though (apparently there are differences in some low level canvas functions that might make things tricky).
your dad may not want to try different linux flavours, but he might think twice when his windows machine gets a virus or he can't find a setting in some obscure nest of dialogs. maybe he won't but different people have different tolerance thresholds.
cheers
Win 8, while not as bad as a lot of people think, will be seen as a pretty dire mistake. It probably is hurting MS more than any hypothetical success in the mobile market will help them. I'm about as uncomfortable with training my folks on Win 8 as I am on any Linux DE. Win 8 is still a bit more within their expectations, but its beginning to reach.
My dad did get a virus, not too long ago. His fault, or rather his fault for letting all the kids, stepchildren, and grandkids, use his computer. His reaction was to through the whole thing in a dumpster, and get a new one. He didn't tell me this, so I was very confused when he asked me to get his data back. Computers are like toasters or microwaves, when they die, you buy a new one. This is increasingly true, as costs drop, and cloud features increase.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
re: "I'm still not 100% sure of where everything is, and what every directory is actually for"
have a look in the windows directory... do you know what everything in there does? you're probably aware that windows has a "hosts" file? talking about complex filesystem though... rather than finding it under "/etc/hosts" as in most linux distributions, in windows you have to go down to "c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts" ...so which has the more complex filesystem?
your view of the simplicity of the windows filesystem is again due to your familiarity with it. if you have to teach someone who has never used a computer before, it is actually easier to help them get around the linux filesystem than windows, because everything is available from the one place; user files are all located under "\home\[username]\" and in nautilus (file browser) there are shortcuts to all the usual subdirectories like music and movies. linux was clunky once upon a time, but it has come a long way in the past few years.
ubuntu (or even debian itself) is quite possibly ready for family home computer use if there is little vested interest in the microsoft ecosystem already (reliance on adobe or autodesk products for example), such as a family's first computer where mom and dad don't rely on windows-only software like photoshop. internet, email, office, music, art/graphics and even games (including many windows titles with wine) already work well under modern linux distributions, and the experience needn't be bogged down by virus and malware scanners (combined with a separate fairly commonplace modem/router with firewall used for internet access, default security options are in almost all cases adequate) or constant fear of infection, particularly with either risk of kids being exposed to malware with porn-related payloads, or teenagers downloading content from risky sites or p2p networks that may include malware.