trueg50

He is spot on, and it was very neutral and well worded.

Those are the biggest annoyances for me.

I would love to learn more linux and play with it, but unfortunately the distro's are so different that I can't learn 1 distro that very closely applies to all of them. They are fairly similar, but default applications and such really cripple it.

I tried various distro's, and none worked logically, or without lots of annoying forum searching, that is why if /when I want to try a new linux/unix on my laptop, it will be OSX.

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ZHoob2004

The way I see it, people used to be ready in the days of dos, but now when everything is handed to them in a silver hp windows computer they aren't capable of figuring out what to do when it's not.

people want to have the same problems they've always had with windows rather than face a completely different set of problems associated with linux.

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Greensystemsgo

i have put ubuntu on customers computers in the past because they didnt have windows cd key. after about a week they either pirated their own windows or paid for a copy and had me do it

none of them even gamed! i dont get it

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newphase

So true!

I recall my first 386 PC. No hard-copy manual, totally unintuitive and I sat for hours and days on end familiarising myself with the finer points of DOS. Thats the thing with Windows specifically and GUI's in general: they have to cater to the lowest common denominator which is usually a non-tech-savvy end Luser user. (Not a bash at Windows(I like windows!))

That by no means implies that I want computers to revert to being "difficult".

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trueg50

While many people claim thats why it hasn't taken off, that really is a fraction of the reason.

There are just so many reasons, Windows and OSX just work, very little configuration, and are much more intuitive then Linux can be.

No, we have fortunately come leaps and bounds past those days. Now computers aren't toys, they are serious work machines.

When is the last time you bought a car that you know crashed frequently, and would always break down on the highway?

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Lockedge

Stupid is too harsh and you sound like an elitist dude. I'd say ignorant or indifferent. Not every consumer has the time to figure out how Linux works. And also most consumers prefer an easy interface.

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DEC_42

I'd say KDE and GNOME are pretty easy to use.

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thiussat

False premise. The author seems to forget that writing an operating system is much more expensive and costs more man hours than writing AutoCAD. Therefore, we can conclude that sophisticated software projects can be and are created in the FLOSS community. And it isn't just basement hackers doing this stuff -- there are a lot of big corporations who pay people to write *nix software. IBM, Novell, Red Hat, Intel, Nokia, Connectiva, Sun Microsystems, Oracle just to name a few.

Most people's sound works out of the box these days. However, from a developments perspective, Linux audio can be a nightmare. I will agree with him here that Linux needs a unified audio subsystem, and badly.

Retarded. QT and GTK are not unstable at all. Moreover, some Windows apps are now being coded in the "unstable" QT.
Umm, it would be the opposite. Usually the desktop renders better with composite and OpenGL turned off since these are taxing to the hardware. What is this guy smoking?
In other words, it isn't enough like Windows!
While I agree it would be good to have a single unified binary package type, I don't think it really "adds to development costs." Non-developers can learn to make packages. It isn't difficult.

Again, he is complaining that it isn't enough like Windows. Is Windows supposed to be the "benchmark" by how all OS's are supposed to be designed? If so, thank God Linux is not like Windows.

And allowing "double click" installs is a bad idea, imo. This is precisely one of the reasons Windows is so plagued with viruses and spyware. People randomly double click crap they download from some random website. The Ubuntu repositories contain close to 30,000 packages. If that isn't enough software, then I don't know what is.

They don't use different compilers. I have never seen a Linux distro that doesn't use GCC.

Other than games, the number of Windows applications that don't have Linux equivalents is extremely small. I have found that most of the time the Linux alternative is actually better.

False premise. Most home users don't want to "work." Furthermore, the ones that do can use GIMP (it is plenty powerful for home stuff, and can even be used professionally. It's just most people are too used to Photoshop to even try it and those that do use it for 5 minutes and immediately claim GIMP sucks).

Secondly, how many home users need Auto freakin' CAD? .0001%? The last time I checked most grandmas weren't up late writing plans to build an 8 lane expressway over Lake Michigan.

There is nothing that can be done about this by the Linux devs. Go ***** at the hardware manufacturers who don't support Linux.

Why would you buy a printer that you know doesn't work with your OS? The fact is, HP printers typically all work without a hitch. Buy HP if you want a Linux printer.

Yeah, and 10 years ago it was impossible to watch DVD movies in Linux too. That changed quickly. Blu-Ray is not quite there on Linux yet, but it is moving along rapidly.

FUD. When is the last time an end user purchased the freakin MP3 codec? Besides, the codec is not magically free because one uses Windows. You still are bound by the same restrictions/licenses no matter the OS.

And why use these proprietary codecs anyway? I have found vorbis superior to MP3 and it is not encumbered by any patents and is completely FLOSS.

Maybe they are 10 years old because no one freaking uses KDE 1.0 anymore? Could THAT be it? Possibly? It would be like me *****ing that M$ doesn't release bug fixes for Windows 95.

*** is this? Linux is THE server OS. If there is anywhere it wipes the floor with 'doze it is in the server department. Just because the average idiot can't set-up his server with a few points and clicks doesn't mean it is inferior.

The benchmarking of individual applications means nothing. How about running floating point intensive tasks (like SuperPi). You will see Linux mops the floor with Windows.

Most of the time, those applications that run slower on Linux have to do with the way the application was compiled and a 100 other factors.

You have got to be kidding. I would wager this guy has never heard of the "man" command.

This is the most ridiculous charge of them all. This guy actually is going to criticize the Linux security model? Can he really say with a straight face that Windows is more secure? Can he REALLY?

I could provide an entire essay as to why he's wrong. But I have done that so many times before that I am tired of educating the clueless.

Umm, it's called dependencies. That's why we have package managers.

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Flatliner

Bingo.

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The Hundred Gunner

No, he's right. There needs to be a centralized control utility like Suse has with Yast. One of ubuntu's biggest downfalls, as I've said for a long time now, is its lack of a unified control center. Instead of a central hub, you've got the cheap-o "KDE network manager" and then "Ksound" or "KpowerSave," or whatever the GNOME "G-" alternatives are.

Compare that with Yast. You've got a control center that is well-integrated with the rest of the OS. Things make sense, things work, just the way the average desktop user like it (and that is what this article is supposed to be about).


He's not complaining that it's not enough like windows... Unless by windows you mean "makes it easy to install programs." Because if so, I will agree with him. Why should a regular desktop user have to "make" and "make install" or even pull up a terminal, for that matter?

I think this is a valid issue: if program installation is this complicated, Linux is not ready for the desktop.

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