Yeah - they use them to measure how many people use Windows.
That's about it, as far as I can tell, based on Windows usability.
Anybody who complains about Linux usability has never used Windows. I had to learn BOTH of these systems in the last six years and there isn't a penny's worth of difference between them as far as usability. From the limited Mac experience I've had, Macs are only slightly better.
Learning how to use something is NOT "intuitive" and never was. I can't off the top of my head think of ANY product from ANY industry that is "intuitive" (if it has more than an "ON" button). The only EFFECTIVE product I've ever used is the US Army P-38 can opener - and THAT wasn't "intuitive".
ANYBODY who works for Microsoft who is authorized to talk to the public is a LIAR. (Except the guy last week who said OneCare shouldn't have been released - I'm sure he's unemployed today.)
So Scoble isn't with Microsoft any more. Fine, now he can tell the truth - maybe. There are plenty of shills here at/. and elsewhere who shill for Microsoft without being paid.
The important point was that when he WAS with Microsoft - he was a LIAR.
I wouldn't worrry about the FSF. The only thing they seem to care about is making sure Stallman gets the credit for "inventing" "GNU/Linux" because a bunch of GNU utilities are included with Linux.
An article the other day described how a journalist wanted some information on GPLv3. Stallman wouldn't talk to him - and forbade anyone else from talking to him - until the journalist agreed to always refer to Linux as "GNU/Linux."
If this isn't completely stupid fanaticism on the part of Stallman, I don't know what is.
The FSF's argument in any case is braindead. You need a desktop just as much as you need cat, so why isn't Linux called "KDE/Linux" or "GNOME/Linux" or even "Xfce/Linux"?
And refusing to discuss GPLv3 until Stallman's ego is stroked? Pathetic.
Stallman is someone I can't pay any further attention to. He's gone completely senile.
Of course, you're right that management ACTS that way - but it's all CYA. Nobody ever sues a software company for non-performance of the software. They just pour more good money after bad trying to make it work - until they either get something half-assed working or they abandon the project and start all over again with some other vendor.
This migration reminds me of an article I read in ComputerWorld many years ago.
I think it was the Travelers Insurance Company. The head of IT there filed suit against the COBOL Standards Committee for coming out with a new standard. His reason was that Travelers hadn't finished converting some millions of lines of code from the next oldest version of the standard to the last version of the standard!
The article said that Travelers had a TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MAN COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT WITHIN the overall IT department.
And they couldn't finish converting their COBOL code in less than TEN YEARS!
When I read that, I said, "Hey, pay me ten million bucks! I'll get your code converted by next Tuesday before lunch!"
I mean, if you have a 250-man group of computer scientists WITHIN your IT department, don't you think you could do a little better at converting COBOL code in less than ten years?
I also remember reading an article around the same time predicting that some major insurance company was going to go under simply because they could no longer maintain their code. AFAIK, it never happened - but everybody believed it could.
If your company depends on that kind of cruft, you need to start thinking about RETHINKING your whole IT infrastructure - because something is seriously wrong there.
The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" axiom does not apply here, either, because by definition this stuff is being "fixed" regularly - and that's part of the problem.
Look, pal, my buddies and I used sticks in ant and termite holes to increase data transmission speeds. You have no idea how fast a termite can move when he has to!
Beats eSATA every time over multi-meter distances!
And they taste better...
By the way, anybody notice this doesn't even
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eSATA Connectors
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come close to being an "article".
It's a frikkin' ADVERTISEMENT.
Nice that it spawned a nice discussion of hardware, but c'mon, you could have done that with a simple "What about SATA connectors" question made up from somebody who doesn't even exist.
Re:Multiple SATA Drives on a Single SATA Connector
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Yes, it's called port multiplication. You can get two- to twelve-bay eSATA enclosures with onboard electronics to do up to four-to-one (maybe more) fan-in that allows one four-port eSATA card to control up to 12 SATA drives in the enclosure.
Very nice for large cheap storage needs - you can put 6-9 TB of storage - using 500-750GB SATA drives - in one box controlled by one controller card in the host PC. 500GB SATA drives are going for under $200 these days.
I have a client who needs about 9TB of storage space. Right now he's using up his Firewire ports on one box, I've recommended he just get any box (all it has to do is act as an archive, not even a file server) plus a multi-bay eSATA enclosure and eSATA controller cards. Much cheaper than any SAN alternative.
Re:Any advantages over having only one connector?
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That's true, I read a hardware test where Firewire and eSATA were compared. They were close to the same speed for single drives, but once you start adding drives, eSATA pulls away from Firewire pretty quickly.
What I don't like is a multiplicity of connectors for the same protocol, either. Having two different Firewire connectors means I have to peer at them every time I mess with it (and my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be - not that ever was that great). The same will be true with SATA, unfortunately.
Still, it's obvious to me that eSATA is the cheap way to go for large amounts of external storage where a Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN isn't justifiable. There are a number of people making eSATA enclosures with four-way port fan-in, so one four-port eSATA card can control up to 12 cheap SATA drives of 500-750GB each or 6-9 TB of storage.
Vista is going nowhere, so now they trot out some bozo to say that Vista security problems won't be as bad as XP's.
Then they also had some Microsoft bozo post on his blog that he was going to compare vulnerabilities - actually, not even vulnerabilities but FIXES - between OS's - using the same discredited methodologies they've been using since forever. Naturally Windows came out ahead. He even tried to head off criticism by admitting he was a Microsoft bozo. Naturally, that didn't work.
In other words, Microsoft is trying to spin Vista's failure to be a "Windows security cureall" - especially since OneCare has been a PR nightmare by failing antivirus checks and then deleting users Outlook email files.
It's just another pathetic Microsoft pack of lies.
Remember, folks: ANYBODY authorized by Microsoft to talk to the public is a LIAR.
Yeah, I've got Slackware 10 running on my old Compaq 400MHz DeskPro 4000 with 256MB. It runs slow, but it runs. I mean by slow, 22 seconds to open up the Kate editor, 30 seconds for Kontact, around 30 for Firefox. I couldn't stand that if I had to use it daily, but it's just my backup machine in case something happens to my main machine.
I think Kubuntu would run on something with 192MB and say 1GHz CPU or above, but the KDE desktop would probably be slow. Might be fine with a lighter desktop - but then most new users don't know about and wouldn't mess with something like Fluxbox or Xfce.
Yes, SOME WiFi works fine. Ignore my hyperbole - the real problem remains that it isn't that easy for a lot of people. You got lucky because they included Network Manager - why? Because Wireless Assistant was crap - which they should have known before shipping Edgy with it.
I've never used GNOME, as I started with KDE on Red Hat 7.3 and feel no need to switch desktops.
However, you shouldn't have had that much trouble finding where to mount a disk, no matter what desktop you're using. I've read that GNOME is weird in their handling of file management windows and the like, but the system settings, even if moved around in the menus, should have been locatable.
However, doing a quick Google, I see that there is NO instructions available on using the GUI mount facilities, apparently. All the instructions are how to edit/etc/fstab to mount NTFS partitions using either the native support or ntfs-ng.
So maybe there isn't an easy way to do this in Ubuntu.
In Kubuntu, you do System Settings, Advanced, Disk and File Settings, and then enter Administrator mode. Right click on any partition to change its options.
This is the second time I've read someone saying that they couldn't do something in Ubuntu which is relatively straightforward in Kubuntu. Why is there such a disconnect between usability in Kubuntu and Ubuntu?
Nobody goes through all that and can't get a working boot CD unless they've got hardware or brainware problems. Either your box is weird in some way, or your CD burner is messed up, or...
Wait a minute! You tried burning an ISO with "XP's builtin software"? XP does not HAVE builtin software to burn ISO images! You DO KNOW what an ISO image is, don't you?
Beyond that, once you presumably got a burned ISO CD, if it locks up the system, either your CD drive is crap when you burned the CD or any other CD drive you burned it on burned it badly or is incompatible with your CD drive, or your CD drive is crap and isn't reading it properly, or the CD media you're using is crap.
In short, find someone who knows what they're doing and get them to show you how.
This is definitely not a Linux or even an Ubuntu problem, it's a problem between the keyboard and the chair.
"Ndiswapper (which I've used before) comes in a nice package and is easy to install but no-where does it tell you that they didn't bother to include the firmware for the most common cards. And after that little problem I still couldn't get it connected. I finally ended up writing a script to force it to connect to my router with the mac address."
Yup. Had similar problems trying to get wireless to work with a VERY vanilla Linksys router and card on a Dell Inspiron 1200 for a client.
And for this particular card, the firmware WAS included - but the latest version was buggier than the earlier version. Took me a day of research to track that down on launchpad and the Ubuntu forums.
Then the stupid Wireless Assistant doesn't work worth a damn with WEP...
They need to automate this crap big time, just like the distros finally did with printer setup.
"It's just not at the same level as Mandriva IMHO"
Agreed - exactly my point.
(X)buntu is not a MATURE distro. It took Mandriva YEARS to get to the point where it is the easiest distro for a newbie to use (aside from Xandros which is designed to be for Windows users). How long has Ubuntu been around? Not long enough. They're coming up faster than some distros because they have some money behind them - but they need more work before they can be recommended to a new user.
The problem is exactly that: the odds that the bug WILL be there in final release is actually quite HIGH becaue (X)buntu doesn't have the manpower to do adequate quality control and testing and then prompt resolution of bugs.
The fact that a laptop overheating bug has existed for a year or more demonstrates that quite clearly.
The fact that the Kubuntu 6.06 install process was NEVER TESTED AT ALL (how else did they miss the fact that you can't exit the mount point change screen?) proves it as well.
Ubuntu has been overhyped. The maintainers can't keep up with the popularity and the pressure to add eye candy features rather than nail down the basics and insure quality.
"Auto-adjusting the display to something usable is a pretty basic requirement, IMHO."
I agree with you, however I have to relate this story.
One of my current clients has several Dell machines hooked up to Dell monitors.
A couple of them have the nasty habit, when rebooting, of suddenly saying "This monitor mode is not supported" - and proceeding to freeze the system. You can't do ANYTHING when they do this except hit the power button.
I haven't bothered to try to fix this yet as it's a minor issue that only occurs when rebooting and the client rarely reboots these machines while in production work, but I just thought it was interesting that the combination of Windows XP, Dell video and Dell monitors STILL can't manage to keep the system working right.
Again, it's not changing resolutions. I can do that in Kubuntu via the GUI.
It's the whole SETUP and CONFIG PROCESS that needs to be addressed as a PATTERN.
Linux developers seem to address this in several phases:
1) Get something - anything - working. Put it out there.
2) Get a GUI working. Put it out there.
3) Automate the process. Put it out there.
4) Change the whole subsystem in the kernel. Put it out there.
Where any given distro is in the process above depends on its manpower and maturity.
Right now, printers appear to be in stage 3 with GUI configuration and CUPS.
Wireless is in stage 2 and struggling to get to the stage 3 because of driver availability problems and poor GUI wireless utilities.
Xorg is somewhere between stage 2 and stage 3. Apparently the next version of Xorg will be moving to stage 3. If true, that will be a huge boon to Linux since display problems simply shouldn't exist and it should not be tolerated to have to manually edit a configuration file to get the display working. It's okay if the display comes up in the wrong resolution initially - I mean, Windows does that - but all you should have to do then is right click on the desktop, and change the resolution. That's a no brainer.
You're undoubtedly correct that Linux APPS have a long way to go to match the more mature Windows apps.
However, that is not a commentary on LINUX the OS per se - merely a commentary on Linux's acceptance in the consumer marketplace. Although in fact, Linux the OS has the same problem - just less so since it HAS been around for fifteen years at this point - which is why it's become quite usable on the desktop AS a desktop. It has matured.
In some respects, it's clear that OSS development tends to be slower than commercial software development - undoubtedly due to the fact that many OSS developers have to do it in their spare time rather than eight hours a day or more while being paid. Plus OSS development is distributed - it's not a bunch of guys in the same office. That slows things down more as well.
So it's useful to keep that in mind as we wait for OSS software to catch up with commercial applications that have been around for ten years or more and are in release 5, 8, or 10 vs the OSS software that is still in release.91.
All of which is irrelevant for the most part to the corporate desktop - at least for those corporations not into heavy media development - which is most corporations. And most of them use Macs for that stuff, anyway. No matter how long it takes for Linux to catch up to Windows apps in the media field, it will take even longer to catch up to the Mac.
Slashdot Mirror
"they did/do have usability labs."
Yeah - they use them to measure how many people use Windows.
That's about it, as far as I can tell, based on Windows usability.
Anybody who complains about Linux usability has never used Windows. I had to learn BOTH of these systems in the last six years and there isn't a penny's worth of difference between them as far as usability. From the limited Mac experience I've had, Macs are only slightly better.
Learning how to use something is NOT "intuitive" and never was. I can't off the top of my head think of ANY product from ANY industry that is "intuitive" (if it has more than an "ON" button). The only EFFECTIVE product I've ever used is the US Army P-38 can opener - and THAT wasn't "intuitive".
Microsoft fanboys and employees ARE "monkeys on typewriters". (A few of the posters on Scoble's site have basically told him so.)
Bill Gates is not a man to ask for opinions anyway. When he wants your opinion, he'll GIVE it to you.
As I've said many times here and elsewhere:
ANYBODY who works for Microsoft who is authorized to talk to the public is a LIAR. (Except the guy last week who said OneCare shouldn't have been released - I'm sure he's unemployed today.)
So Scoble isn't with Microsoft any more. Fine, now he can tell the truth - maybe. There are plenty of shills here at
The important point was that when he WAS with Microsoft - he was a LIAR.
By definition.
Microsoft does not sell software. It sells LIES.
I wouldn't worrry about the FSF. The only thing they seem to care about is making sure Stallman gets the credit for "inventing" "GNU/Linux" because a bunch of GNU utilities are included with Linux.
An article the other day described how a journalist wanted some information on GPLv3. Stallman wouldn't talk to him - and forbade anyone else from talking to him - until the journalist agreed to always refer to Linux as "GNU/Linux."
If this isn't completely stupid fanaticism on the part of Stallman, I don't know what is.
The FSF's argument in any case is braindead. You need a desktop just as much as you need cat, so why isn't Linux called "KDE/Linux" or "GNOME/Linux" or even "Xfce/Linux"?
And refusing to discuss GPLv3 until Stallman's ego is stroked? Pathetic.
Stallman is someone I can't pay any further attention to. He's gone completely senile.
Hint: Don't use the Wireless Assistant - it's crap, doesn't work well with WEP. Get GNOME Network Manager.
"(if OSS hoses your network, who you going to sue?"
Bullshit.
Marcus Ranum annihilated this argument in his "Stupid About Software" rant.
Of course, you're right that management ACTS that way - but it's all CYA. Nobody ever sues a software company for non-performance of the software. They just pour more good money after bad trying to make it work - until they either get something half-assed working or they abandon the project and start all over again with some other vendor.
This migration reminds me of an article I read in ComputerWorld many years ago.
I think it was the Travelers Insurance Company. The head of IT there filed suit against the COBOL Standards Committee for coming out with a new standard. His reason was that Travelers hadn't finished converting some millions of lines of code from the next oldest version of the standard to the last version of the standard!
The article said that Travelers had a TWO HUNDRED FIFTY MAN COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT WITHIN the overall IT department.
And they couldn't finish converting their COBOL code in less than TEN YEARS!
When I read that, I said, "Hey, pay me ten million bucks! I'll get your code converted by next Tuesday before lunch!"
I mean, if you have a 250-man group of computer scientists WITHIN your IT department, don't you think you could do a little better at converting COBOL code in less than ten years?
I also remember reading an article around the same time predicting that some major insurance company was going to go under simply because they could no longer maintain their code. AFAIK, it never happened - but everybody believed it could.
If your company depends on that kind of cruft, you need to start thinking about RETHINKING your whole IT infrastructure - because something is seriously wrong there.
The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" axiom does not apply here, either, because by definition this stuff is being "fixed" regularly - and that's part of the problem.
Stone? Stone?
Look, pal, my buddies and I used sticks in ant and termite holes to increase data transmission speeds. You have no idea how fast a termite can move when he has to!
Beats eSATA every time over multi-meter distances!
And they taste better...
come close to being an "article".
It's a frikkin' ADVERTISEMENT.
Nice that it spawned a nice discussion of hardware, but c'mon, you could have done that with a simple "What about SATA connectors" question made up from somebody who doesn't even exist.
Yes, it's called port multiplication. You can get two- to twelve-bay eSATA enclosures with onboard electronics to do up to four-to-one (maybe more) fan-in that allows one four-port eSATA card to control up to 12 SATA drives in the enclosure.
Very nice for large cheap storage needs - you can put 6-9 TB of storage - using 500-750GB SATA drives - in one box controlled by one controller card in the host PC. 500GB SATA drives are going for under $200 these days.
I have a client who needs about 9TB of storage space. Right now he's using up his Firewire ports on one box, I've recommended he just get any box (all it has to do is act as an archive, not even a file server) plus a multi-bay eSATA enclosure and eSATA controller cards. Much cheaper than any SAN alternative.
That's true, I read a hardware test where Firewire and eSATA were compared. They were close to the same speed for single drives, but once you start adding drives, eSATA pulls away from Firewire pretty quickly.
What I don't like is a multiplicity of connectors for the same protocol, either. Having two different Firewire connectors means I have to peer at them every time I mess with it (and my eyesight isn't as good as it used to be - not that ever was that great). The same will be true with SATA, unfortunately.
Still, it's obvious to me that eSATA is the cheap way to go for large amounts of external storage where a Fibre Channel or iSCSI SAN isn't justifiable. There are a number of people making eSATA enclosures with four-way port fan-in, so one four-port eSATA card can control up to 12 cheap SATA drives of 500-750GB each or 6-9 TB of storage.
It only serves a single photon at a time because OneCare deleted all the other photons.
Vista is going nowhere, so now they trot out some bozo to say that Vista security problems won't be as bad as XP's.
Then they also had some Microsoft bozo post on his blog that he was going to compare vulnerabilities - actually, not even vulnerabilities but FIXES - between OS's - using the same discredited methodologies they've been using since forever. Naturally Windows came out ahead. He even tried to head off criticism by admitting he was a Microsoft bozo. Naturally, that didn't work.
In other words, Microsoft is trying to spin Vista's failure to be a "Windows security cureall" - especially since OneCare has been a PR nightmare by failing antivirus checks and then deleting users Outlook email files.
It's just another pathetic Microsoft pack of lies.
Remember, folks: ANYBODY authorized by Microsoft to talk to the public is a LIAR.
Microsoft does NOT sell software. It sells LIES.
Yeah, I've got Slackware 10 running on my old Compaq 400MHz DeskPro 4000 with 256MB. It runs slow, but it runs. I mean by slow, 22 seconds to open up the Kate editor, 30 seconds for Kontact, around 30 for Firefox. I couldn't stand that if I had to use it daily, but it's just my backup machine in case something happens to my main machine.
I think Kubuntu would run on something with 192MB and say 1GHz CPU or above, but the KDE desktop would probably be slow. Might be fine with a lighter desktop - but then most new users don't know about and wouldn't mess with something like Fluxbox or Xfce.
Yes, SOME WiFi works fine. Ignore my hyperbole - the real problem remains that it isn't that easy for a lot of people. You got lucky because they included Network Manager - why? Because Wireless Assistant was crap - which they should have known before shipping Edgy with it.
What's wrong with this set of posts?
"Ubuntu's level of maturity is becoming genuinely amazing."
"Or just install Feisty (it's mostly stable)"
Ubuntu's level of maturity is "amazing" based on the amount of time it's been around.
However, compared to a REALLY mature distro like Mandriva, it's a joke,
That is the point of commenting on this article at all.
Eugenia says Ubuntu is "mature."
No, it is not.
And as such, it is not recommended for newbies to Linux, no matter how popular it may be with ACTUAL NON-NEWBIE LINUX users.
This is something you Ubuntu fanboys need to get through your head. YOU are NOT Linux newbies.
I've never used GNOME, as I started with KDE on Red Hat 7.3 and feel no need to switch desktops.
However, you shouldn't have had that much trouble finding where to mount a disk, no matter what desktop you're using. I've read that GNOME is weird in their handling of file management windows and the like, but the system settings, even if moved around in the menus, should have been locatable.
However, doing a quick Google, I see that there is NO instructions available on using the GUI mount facilities, apparently. All the instructions are how to edit
So maybe there isn't an easy way to do this in Ubuntu.
In Kubuntu, you do System Settings, Advanced, Disk and File Settings, and then enter Administrator mode. Right click on any partition to change its options.
This is the second time I've read someone saying that they couldn't do something in Ubuntu which is relatively straightforward in Kubuntu. Why is there such a disconnect between usability in Kubuntu and Ubuntu?
Definitely a hardware - or wetware - problem.
Nobody goes through all that and can't get a working boot CD unless they've got hardware or brainware problems. Either your box is weird in some way, or your CD burner is messed up, or...
Wait a minute! You tried burning an ISO with "XP's builtin software"? XP does not HAVE builtin software to burn ISO images! You DO KNOW what an ISO image is, don't you?
Beyond that, once you presumably got a burned ISO CD, if it locks up the system, either your CD drive is crap when you burned the CD or any other CD drive you burned it on burned it badly or is incompatible with your CD drive, or your CD drive is crap and isn't reading it properly, or the CD media you're using is crap.
In short, find someone who knows what they're doing and get them to show you how.
This is definitely not a Linux or even an Ubuntu problem, it's a problem between the keyboard and the chair.
"Ndiswapper (which I've used before) comes in a nice package and is easy to install but no-where does it tell you that they didn't bother to include the firmware for the most common cards. And after that little problem I still couldn't get it connected. I finally ended up writing a script to force it to connect to my router with the mac address."
Yup. Had similar problems trying to get wireless to work with a VERY vanilla Linksys router and card on a Dell Inspiron 1200 for a client.
And for this particular card, the firmware WAS included - but the latest version was buggier than the earlier version. Took me a day of research to track that down on launchpad and the Ubuntu forums.
Then the stupid Wireless Assistant doesn't work worth a damn with WEP...
They need to automate this crap big time, just like the distros finally did with printer setup.
"It's just not at the same level as Mandriva IMHO"
Agreed - exactly my point.
(X)buntu is not a MATURE distro. It took Mandriva YEARS to get to the point where it is the easiest distro for a newbie to use (aside from Xandros which is designed to be for Windows users). How long has Ubuntu been around? Not long enough. They're coming up faster than some distros because they have some money behind them - but they need more work before they can be recommended to a new user.
The problem is exactly that: the odds that the bug WILL be there in final release is actually quite HIGH becaue (X)buntu doesn't have the manpower to do adequate quality control and testing and then prompt resolution of bugs.
The fact that a laptop overheating bug has existed for a year or more demonstrates that quite clearly.
The fact that the Kubuntu 6.06 install process was NEVER TESTED AT ALL (how else did they miss the fact that you can't exit the mount point change screen?) proves it as well.
Ubuntu has been overhyped. The maintainers can't keep up with the popularity and the pressure to add eye candy features rather than nail down the basics and insure quality.
"Auto-adjusting the display to something usable is a pretty basic requirement, IMHO."
I agree with you, however I have to relate this story.
One of my current clients has several Dell machines hooked up to Dell monitors.
A couple of them have the nasty habit, when rebooting, of suddenly saying "This monitor mode is not supported" - and proceeding to freeze the system. You can't do ANYTHING when they do this except hit the power button.
I haven't bothered to try to fix this yet as it's a minor issue that only occurs when rebooting and the client rarely reboots these machines while in production work, but I just thought it was interesting that the combination of Windows XP, Dell video and Dell monitors STILL can't manage to keep the system working right.
Again, it's not changing resolutions. I can do that in Kubuntu via the GUI.
It's the whole SETUP and CONFIG PROCESS that needs to be addressed as a PATTERN.
Linux developers seem to address this in several phases:
1) Get something - anything - working. Put it out there.
2) Get a GUI working. Put it out there.
3) Automate the process. Put it out there.
4) Change the whole subsystem in the kernel. Put it out there.
Where any given distro is in the process above depends on its manpower and maturity.
Right now, printers appear to be in stage 3 with GUI configuration and CUPS.
Wireless is in stage 2 and struggling to get to the stage 3 because of driver availability problems and poor GUI wireless utilities.
Xorg is somewhere between stage 2 and stage 3. Apparently the next version of Xorg will be moving to stage 3. If true, that will be a huge boon to Linux since display problems simply shouldn't exist and it should not be tolerated to have to manually edit a configuration file to get the display working. It's okay if the display comes up in the wrong resolution initially - I mean, Windows does that - but all you should have to do then is right click on the desktop, and change the resolution. That's a no brainer.
You're right - as Woody Allen observed - and this applies to the entire IT industry in spades - "Nothing works and nobody cares."
Windows, Linux, Mac, it's all the same problem.
As I always say:
Windows is CRAP.
Linux is ALSO CRAP.
BUT Linux is FREE crap.
You're undoubtedly correct that Linux APPS have a long way to go to match the more mature Windows apps.
However, that is not a commentary on LINUX the OS per se - merely a commentary on Linux's acceptance in the consumer marketplace. Although in fact, Linux the OS has the same problem - just less so since it HAS been around for fifteen years at this point - which is why it's become quite usable on the desktop AS a desktop. It has matured.
In some respects, it's clear that OSS development tends to be slower than commercial software development - undoubtedly due to the fact that many OSS developers have to do it in their spare time rather than eight hours a day or more while being paid. Plus OSS development is distributed - it's not a bunch of guys in the same office. That slows things down more as well.
So it's useful to keep that in mind as we wait for OSS software to catch up with commercial applications that have been around for ten years or more and are in release 5, 8, or 10 vs the OSS software that is still in release
All of which is irrelevant for the most part to the corporate desktop - at least for those corporations not into heavy media development - which is most corporations. And most of them use Macs for that stuff, anyway. No matter how long it takes for Linux to catch up to Windows apps in the media field, it will take even longer to catch up to the Mac.