I have two drives and four partitions in total. In the installer they show up as HD0, HD1 and stuff like that. I don't know which drive is which, or which partition is which, and the installer didn't offer any info about which partition had the OS, which had the data, which had the recovery stuff, and which was empty. Though the two drives are identically partitioned, I might have been able to figure out which was which had I spent some real time on it. But since I couldn't do it in 3 minutes, my response continues to be: this is not user-friendly enough for the mass market. That doesn't mean I'm not capable of learning how to install and use Ubuntu. It means that it wasn't convenient enough for me to switch. Since the central part of Ubuntu's mission is precisely to be easy enough to for people to effortlessly migrate from Windows, this constitutes a failure to a achieve their stated objective.
No matter how many people call me a retard for not taking the several hours I would need to learn enough about how to install Ubuntu to do it safely, it doesn't change the fact that Ubuntu is not user-friendly enough for someone's grandma to install. Many Linux distros are expert-only. No grandma's wanted. But Ubuntu is NOT like that. The only possible reason why fanboys continue to flame me for pointing out these facts is that the truth has a bitter taste.
They want to create a distribution of Linux that is usable by the masses.
Exactly. If they didn't want this, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about. There are expert-only Linux distros, and you don't hear me whining about them being too difficult for a noob to figure out in 2 minutes. But the whole purpose of Ubuntu is to be easy and user-friendly enough to both install and use as to make people want to switch from Windows. Well guess what? FAIL.
I wonder how Ubuntu could address this? I suppose it's a pretty fine line between huge shiny buttons and clear indications of 'expert' level settings. Hopefully it is something they can improve in another version, I don't know.
Now that's an attitude I like: what are the solutions?
I think a good start would be an interactive walkthrough on their website - like a little flash wizard/guide for the most common install scenarios. Traditional help files are fine, but it's easy to get stuck if you can't find an answer to a question you have. It's like the different between having a guide take you somewhere and have to get there on your own with a map. While I often prefer a map, I think in risky situations I'd go with a guide.
calling you a sad troll & a dumbass is both satisfying to me & educational to fellow slashdotters
I'm rich, successful, good looking and have a model-gorgeous wife, but I'm not sadistic so it doesn'tgive me any satisfaction to know that you and the vast majority of your fellow slashdotters aren't. I wonder which of us is a better person? Morally, I mean, of course.
why must it be like Windows? do you really think windows is *THAT* much easier than Linux alternatives? (or *BSD, etc), or perhaps is it just that you grew up on windows and are used to the way things work?,
I grew up driving in cars with a steering wheel, accelerator, brake, clutch and gearshift. If you want me to switch to a different brand of car, don't complain when I say I'm not keen on it because I have to steer your car with my feet and operate the accelerator and brake with a joystick. If you want me to use your product instead of the one I'm already familiar and happy with, you'd better bend over backwards to make it easy for me.
I think 99% of the people who support Linux would disagree with you.
if you are incapable of installing Linux (either in single OS mode or dual boot) then you are not ready for Linux.
I imagine that Bill Gates and Microsoft would not have created the world's most profitable company if they shared that snotty, arrogant, thoughtless, antagonistic attitude. Maybe that's why they're so much more successful than Linux?
I appreciate the polite tone and candor of your post - infinitely superior to most of the tripe that's been posted. My responses:
why do you want to be that babied by the install program? You are educated rather than babied. Isn't that better? Aren't we all adults here?... nor do I want big shiny buttons that do things for me without me knowing what has happened. I apply this to every aspect of my life, not just installing an operating system. Why don't you?
I have something that already works and that I'm familiar with - Windows. I have only one problem with it: I don't like supporting the 800lb gorilla when there's an underdog to cheer for. I'd like to be babied with a no-brains setup for the same reason that I prefer GUI to command-line interfaces: it makes my life easier. I'd like my 87-year-old grandfather, whose pretty Windows-savvy, to be able switch without worry he's going to lose the thousands of digital pictures he's lovingly taken and arranged in Picassa. I have no pressing need to be educated about drive partitions and bootloaders, just as I have no pressing need to memorize DOS commands - I already have something that works, and if I'm going to switch it had better be easy for me. When I was younger, learning all of the technical mumbo-jumbo would have been a pleasure in itself, but it's not the kind of thing I like to do in my precious-little free time anymore (unlike posting and debating on Slashdot).
I put the Ubuntu disk in and the answers weren't immediately apparent to the questions I had, so I spent 3 minutes looking for the answers on Ubuntu's help pages with no luck, so I abandoned the effort because at that point it was no longer worth it for me. I didn't find the information I needed nearly so easily as you apparently did, and the risk of losing the work data on my laptop was too high to make any kind of gamble. weeks later, out of curiosity, I opened a Ubuntu For Dummies style book in the bookstore to see if the answers to my questions were in there, and they weren't.
Ubuntu/kubuntu do this automatically without asking when the bootloader is installed.
And, apparently, without saying so. Had I known I could magically trust Ubuntu to set up a dual-boot system without borking my existing Windows install or my recovery partition, I might have just clicked 'OK'. But, sadly, there is no mention of ANY of this on screen OR in the newbie help files online OR in the common for-dummies references. It took a Linux-savvy expert like yourself to provide crucial information that any normally intelligent person would automatically know users would absolutely require in order to make a system-critical decision. Why this information is not presented in the install itself, I cannot imagine - except, I suspect, that it is designed and written by people who fail to understand the position and viewpoint of non-experts. I believe the historical evidence will show my suspicion to be correct.
Calling me a stupid troll and a dumbass isn't helping Linux capture any market share, now is it?
The evidence speaks for itself: Linux can't even capture market share with its software by giving it away for free. In any other business on Earth, if you can't capture your competitor's customers by making your products free, it means there is something seriously,seriously wrong with your product. Call me names all you want, it won't make your wishful thinking a reality.
It is true that Windows has advantages because it is entrenched, but that of course means a user-friendly Linux distro like Ubuntu must make migrating from Windows to Linux a one-click process. It isn't, and that is one major reason why Linux is not capturing market share from Windows.
99.9% of all Windows machines just have the one NTFS partition taking up the whole drive.
Actually, most new machines I see have a recovery partition. That's what I didn't want to mess around with. And no, there was no automatic partitioning option. I assure you, the following did NOT take place:
"Ubuntu has detected Windows XP installed on this system. If you would like to create a Dual Boot setup, click 'Create Dual Boot System' and Ubuntu will automatically partition your drives for you." Click. Done.
The argument that Ubuntu or any other Windows-competing OS is inferior simply because it has failed or threatened to fail to leave every brick of the Windows shrine untouched is both stale and lame.
There is no argument, lame or otherwise. The evidence of Linux's failure to penetrate the mass market speaks for itself.
Linux has to do more than just be as good as Windows once it's installed. It has to actively capture market share. To do that, the migration process must be no more complicated than a single click: "Ubuntu has detected Windows XP installed on this system. Do you want to install a Dual Boot System?" Yes. Click. Done. If it's not as easy as that, guess what? No market share for you. Not yours.
The other responders have done a nice job of rushing to my defense, so I won't bother defending myself except to say that I did indeed use Ubuntu by running it off of the CD, which was very cool. But the reason I don't use Ubuntu is because there was no option to just put the CD in the drive, click 'OK' to the the "Do you want to set up a Dual Boot System?" and come back after making coffee to find everything done except maybe setting the time and the date. In my experience, installing Windows hasn't ever been much more complicated than that.
For all the linux fanboys out there, It's worth remembering that Linux doesn't just have to be user friendly to use in order to capture market share from M$, it has to be a one-click, no-brains migration process as well. So long as you don't have that, the evidence in the real world speaks for itself about Linux's failed strategy.
I recently downloaded Ubuntu thinking I might do a dual-boot with Windows. But I didn't get past the first screen: drive partitioning. I'm reasonably computer savvy, but the partition utility left far too many unanswered questions: can I create a new partition on any of my drives without destroying the data that's there? How big should I make the partition? Can partitions be shared between OSs? The online help was useless, as was the most popular Ubuntu-For-Dummies style book at Borders. So I binned it.
Moral of the story is: the reason why Linux doesn't have a wide user base is because even though it is supposed to be the distro for noobs, it's still not user-friendly enough for the mass market.
I sure hope it's a LOT quieter than a whisper. If my machine sounded anything like as loud as a person constantly whispering I think I'd go out of my mind.
This recent article talks about research that suggests cosmic rays significantly affect cloud cover, and thereby have a direct impact on global temperatures. It's fascinating stuff, and while it doesn't nullify anthropogenic climate change, it definitely makes the picture more complicated and more interesting. The interesting stuff starts on page 2 of the article. From the article:
"The basic idea is that solar activity can turn the cloudiness up and down, which has an effect on the warming or cooling of Earth's surface temperature. The key agents in this are cosmic rays, which are energetic particles coming from the interstellar media--they come from remnants of supernova explosions mainly. These energetic particles have to enter into what we call the heliosphere, which is the large volume of space that is dominated by our sun, through the solar wind, which is a plasma of electrons, atomic nuclei, and associated magnetic fields that are streaming nonstop from the sun. Cosmic-ray particles have to penetrate the sun's magnetic field. And if the sun and the solar wind are very active--as they are right now--they will not allow so many cosmic rays to reach Earth. Fewer cosmic rays mean fewer clouds will be formed, and so there will be a warmer Earth. If the sun and the solar wind are not so active, then more cosmic rays can come in. That means more clouds [reflecting away more sunlight] and a cooler Earth.
Now it's well known that solar activity can turn up and down the amount of cosmic rays that come to Earth. But the next question was a complete unknown: Why should cosmic rays affect clouds? Because at that time, when we began this work, there was no mechanism that could explain this. Meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation."
Seems like it should be possible to eliminate most if not all piracy by reducing the price of legitimate versions of Windows to an affordable level. Like has already been done to combat pirated DVDs and CDs.
I have mixed feelings about the logic of differential pricing. Companies are free to charge whatever price they please, but the trouble is that in a global economy where anyone can buy anything from anyone anywhere else, how do we know what is 'fair'? What makes it 'fair' to charge Americans and Canadians more than Chinese and Indians for goods and services? Who decides what is a fair price? Apparently it is 'the market', but if that's the case then why can't I buy Region 6 DVDs from Circuit City for $1? Why is there a stink made by companies and economists who say that free trade is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then complain when they see products sold on eBay for prices that are genuinely fair given the elimination of transaction barriers in the global economy.
We have satellites and probes and robotic vehicles that could reach the top of Mount Everest and the North Pole too, but to say that there is no reason to send a person there misses an important point. Some people have argued that humans actual will gather crucial information that probes cannot - that humans with the same instruments found on Spirit and Opportunity could find confirmation of water or life on Mars in a matter of hours and whatnot. I don't know enough to judge that argument, but what I do know is that there is something awe-inspiring about send humans on perilous journeys of exploration that push the frontiers of civilization outward. You and I might be fine with the Chinese space program putting men on Mars before NASA, but a lot of people would give up every space science mission from now until 2100 to make sure that doesn't happen. It's an issue worth thinking about in terms that are not purely black and white.
I feel like we're playing tennis, and I've only just noticed your aren't holding a racket. I'm not sure what part about profit only being possible in uncompetitive markets you did not understand when you said it to yourself, but I'm happy to say it again, just like in my original post: if you want to make billions, you need a monopoly, oligopoly or cartel.
You might be confused about small businesses. If you want to be a mom and pop shop in a small local market, you can earn enough to subsist. But you will never be rich if you have any significant competition.
As a company owner, I will look for markets that are "under-tapped" - where competition is scarce and margins are high. In doing so, I'm actually deflating those margins. If the marketplace is crowded, margins will be thin, work and stress loads will be high, and I'll be looking to differentiate my product by either making it better, cheaper, or both, meanwhile looking for new markets that are as of yet un(der)tapped.
BZZT. You just made my point for me: massive profit is only possible where markets are minimally competitive. Where the "marketplace is crowded, margins will be thin." Or maybe you're just a fan of things like, "2+2 doesn't equal 4 you idiot, it equals FOUR!"
Your transparent spoon-fed rhetoric confuses demand inelasticity with competition for market share. In the tiny minority of markets which are both highly localized and which have highly inelastic demand, there is invariably a monopoly - local utilities are a prime example.
In other markets, companies cease to compete for market share irrespective of demand elasticity when the field is narrowed to just a handful of sellers via mergers, acquisitions, and initial predatory pricing. The equilibrium point you allude to when you say "there's a disincentive to lower prices beyond that except as a zero-sum game with competition" is one that is either tacitly or overtly agreed to by the remaining sellers. When sellers set 'minimum retail prices' that are all at this equilibrium point, the market is unequivocally rendered minimally competitive, just as I said in my original post.
In the minority of markets where price is not the only consideration, there is also an inherent lack of competition. You will agree that there is only one Apple computer company and only one iPhone at present (though I hear there is already a Chinese clone). If your utility is drawn from the brand and not from the functions of the product, then there are no real alternatives available, and again there is no real competition. This is common for two types of products: luxury items (clothing, jewelry, shoes, etc where brand is the primary consideration and price is secondary - something that only applies to people with discretionary income, which excludes about 90% of the world's population), and innovative technology items which, when first introduced, have no available alternatives. These markets, you will notice, are profitable because each seller is unique and there are therefore no alternatives.
The whole point of the article here is that companies are getting upset when folks on eBay sell identical products for a lower price. When one seller offers you a real alternative for a lower price, that is genuinely competitive, and that is why there is such a fuss here.
Slashdot Mirror
No matter how many people call me a retard for not taking the several hours I would need to learn enough about how to install Ubuntu to do it safely, it doesn't change the fact that Ubuntu is not user-friendly enough for someone's grandma to install. Many Linux distros are expert-only. No grandma's wanted. But Ubuntu is NOT like that. The only possible reason why fanboys continue to flame me for pointing out these facts is that the truth has a bitter taste.
Exactly. If they didn't want this, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about. There are expert-only Linux distros, and you don't hear me whining about them being too difficult for a noob to figure out in 2 minutes. But the whole purpose of Ubuntu is to be easy and user-friendly enough to both install and use as to make people want to switch from Windows. Well guess what? FAIL.
Now that's an attitude I like: what are the solutions?
I think a good start would be an interactive walkthrough on their website - like a little flash wizard/guide for the most common install scenarios. Traditional help files are fine, but it's easy to get stuck if you can't find an answer to a question you have. It's like the different between having a guide take you somewhere and have to get there on your own with a map. While I often prefer a map, I think in risky situations I'd go with a guide.
I'm rich, successful, good looking and have a model-gorgeous wife, but I'm not sadistic so it doesn'tgive me any satisfaction to know that you and the vast majority of your fellow slashdotters aren't. I wonder which of us is a better person? Morally, I mean, of course.
Yeah, but see, the thing is, I don't have Ubuntu and want to try out Windows. So guess who the onus is on?
I grew up driving in cars with a steering wheel, accelerator, brake, clutch and gearshift. If you want me to switch to a different brand of car, don't complain when I say I'm not keen on it because I have to steer your car with my feet and operate the accelerator and brake with a joystick. If you want me to use your product instead of the one I'm already familiar and happy with, you'd better bend over backwards to make it easy for me.
I think 99% of the people who support Linux would disagree with you.
if you are incapable of installing Linux (either in single OS mode or dual boot) then you are not ready for Linux.
I imagine that Bill Gates and Microsoft would not have created the world's most profitable company if they shared that snotty, arrogant, thoughtless, antagonistic attitude. Maybe that's why they're so much more successful than Linux?
why do you want to be that babied by the install program? You are educated rather than babied. Isn't that better? Aren't we all adults here? ... nor do I want big shiny buttons that do things for me without me knowing what has happened. I apply this to every aspect of my life, not just installing an operating system. Why don't you?
I have something that already works and that I'm familiar with - Windows. I have only one problem with it: I don't like supporting the 800lb gorilla when there's an underdog to cheer for. I'd like to be babied with a no-brains setup for the same reason that I prefer GUI to command-line interfaces: it makes my life easier. I'd like my 87-year-old grandfather, whose pretty Windows-savvy, to be able switch without worry he's going to lose the thousands of digital pictures he's lovingly taken and arranged in Picassa. I have no pressing need to be educated about drive partitions and bootloaders, just as I have no pressing need to memorize DOS commands - I already have something that works, and if I'm going to switch it had better be easy for me. When I was younger, learning all of the technical mumbo-jumbo would have been a pleasure in itself, but it's not the kind of thing I like to do in my precious-little free time anymore (unlike posting and debating on Slashdot).
I put the Ubuntu disk in and the answers weren't immediately apparent to the questions I had, so I spent 3 minutes looking for the answers on Ubuntu's help pages with no luck, so I abandoned the effort because at that point it was no longer worth it for me. I didn't find the information I needed nearly so easily as you apparently did, and the risk of losing the work data on my laptop was too high to make any kind of gamble. weeks later, out of curiosity, I opened a Ubuntu For Dummies style book in the bookstore to see if the answers to my questions were in there, and they weren't.
And, apparently, without saying so. Had I known I could magically trust Ubuntu to set up a dual-boot system without borking my existing Windows install or my recovery partition, I might have just clicked 'OK'. But, sadly, there is no mention of ANY of this on screen OR in the newbie help files online OR in the common for-dummies references. It took a Linux-savvy expert like yourself to provide crucial information that any normally intelligent person would automatically know users would absolutely require in order to make a system-critical decision. Why this information is not presented in the install itself, I cannot imagine - except, I suspect, that it is designed and written by people who fail to understand the position and viewpoint of non-experts. I believe the historical evidence will show my suspicion to be correct.
Shucks, you got me. I made the whole thing up.
See my other posts about the fact that if Linux wants a share of the desktop market migration and dual-boot must be a one-click, no-brains process.
The evidence speaks for itself: Linux can't even capture market share with its software by giving it away for free. In any other business on Earth, if you can't capture your competitor's customers by making your products free, it means there is something seriously,seriously wrong with your product. Call me names all you want, it won't make your wishful thinking a reality.
It is true that Windows has advantages because it is entrenched, but that of course means a user-friendly Linux distro like Ubuntu must make migrating from Windows to Linux a one-click process. It isn't, and that is one major reason why Linux is not capturing market share from Windows.
Actually, most new machines I see have a recovery partition. That's what I didn't want to mess around with. And no, there was no automatic partitioning option. I assure you, the following did NOT take place:
"Ubuntu has detected Windows XP installed on this system. If you would like to create a Dual Boot setup, click 'Create Dual Boot System' and Ubuntu will automatically partition your drives for you." Click. Done.
There is no argument, lame or otherwise. The evidence of Linux's failure to penetrate the mass market speaks for itself.
Linux has to do more than just be as good as Windows once it's installed. It has to actively capture market share. To do that, the migration process must be no more complicated than a single click: "Ubuntu has detected Windows XP installed on this system. Do you want to install a Dual Boot System?" Yes. Click. Done. If it's not as easy as that, guess what? No market share for you. Not yours.
For all the linux fanboys out there, It's worth remembering that Linux doesn't just have to be user friendly to use in order to capture market share from M$, it has to be a one-click, no-brains migration process as well. So long as you don't have that, the evidence in the real world speaks for itself about Linux's failed strategy.
Moral of the story is: the reason why Linux doesn't have a wide user base is because even though it is supposed to be the distro for noobs, it's still not user-friendly enough for the mass market.
I sure hope it's a LOT quieter than a whisper. If my machine sounded anything like as loud as a person constantly whispering I think I'd go out of my mind.
"The basic idea is that solar activity can turn the cloudiness up and down, which has an effect on the warming or cooling of Earth's surface temperature. The key agents in this are cosmic rays, which are energetic particles coming from the interstellar media--they come from remnants of supernova explosions mainly. These energetic particles have to enter into what we call the heliosphere, which is the large volume of space that is dominated by our sun, through the solar wind, which is a plasma of electrons, atomic nuclei, and associated magnetic fields that are streaming nonstop from the sun. Cosmic-ray particles have to penetrate the sun's magnetic field. And if the sun and the solar wind are very active--as they are right now--they will not allow so many cosmic rays to reach Earth. Fewer cosmic rays mean fewer clouds will be formed, and so there will be a warmer Earth. If the sun and the solar wind are not so active, then more cosmic rays can come in. That means more clouds [reflecting away more sunlight] and a cooler Earth.
Now it's well known that solar activity can turn up and down the amount of cosmic rays that come to Earth. But the next question was a complete unknown: Why should cosmic rays affect clouds? Because at that time, when we began this work, there was no mechanism that could explain this. Meteorologists denied that cosmic rays could be involved in cloud formation."
I should have clarified: DVDs and CDs now cost just a few dollars in foreign markets like China and India.
I have mixed feelings about the logic of differential pricing. Companies are free to charge whatever price they please, but the trouble is that in a global economy where anyone can buy anything from anyone anywhere else, how do we know what is 'fair'? What makes it 'fair' to charge Americans and Canadians more than Chinese and Indians for goods and services? Who decides what is a fair price? Apparently it is 'the market', but if that's the case then why can't I buy Region 6 DVDs from Circuit City for $1? Why is there a stink made by companies and economists who say that free trade is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but then complain when they see products sold on eBay for prices that are genuinely fair given the elimination of transaction barriers in the global economy.
We have satellites and probes and robotic vehicles that could reach the top of Mount Everest and the North Pole too, but to say that there is no reason to send a person there misses an important point. Some people have argued that humans actual will gather crucial information that probes cannot - that humans with the same instruments found on Spirit and Opportunity could find confirmation of water or life on Mars in a matter of hours and whatnot. I don't know enough to judge that argument, but what I do know is that there is something awe-inspiring about send humans on perilous journeys of exploration that push the frontiers of civilization outward. You and I might be fine with the Chinese space program putting men on Mars before NASA, but a lot of people would give up every space science mission from now until 2100 to make sure that doesn't happen. It's an issue worth thinking about in terms that are not purely black and white.
You might be confused about small businesses. If you want to be a mom and pop shop in a small local market, you can earn enough to subsist. But you will never be rich if you have any significant competition.
BZZT. You just made my point for me: massive profit is only possible where markets are minimally competitive. Where the "marketplace is crowded, margins will be thin." Or maybe you're just a fan of things like, "2+2 doesn't equal 4 you idiot, it equals FOUR!"
In other markets, companies cease to compete for market share irrespective of demand elasticity when the field is narrowed to just a handful of sellers via mergers, acquisitions, and initial predatory pricing. The equilibrium point you allude to when you say "there's a disincentive to lower prices beyond that except as a zero-sum game with competition" is one that is either tacitly or overtly agreed to by the remaining sellers. When sellers set 'minimum retail prices' that are all at this equilibrium point, the market is unequivocally rendered minimally competitive, just as I said in my original post.
In the minority of markets where price is not the only consideration, there is also an inherent lack of competition. You will agree that there is only one Apple computer company and only one iPhone at present (though I hear there is already a Chinese clone). If your utility is drawn from the brand and not from the functions of the product, then there are no real alternatives available, and again there is no real competition. This is common for two types of products: luxury items (clothing, jewelry, shoes, etc where brand is the primary consideration and price is secondary - something that only applies to people with discretionary income, which excludes about 90% of the world's population), and innovative technology items which, when first introduced, have no available alternatives. These markets, you will notice, are profitable because each seller is unique and there are therefore no alternatives.
The whole point of the article here is that companies are getting upset when folks on eBay sell identical products for a lower price. When one seller offers you a real alternative for a lower price, that is genuinely competitive, and that is why there is such a fuss here.