Bravo. Finally a voice of reason in the world of geekdom!

Listen up Linux community. Microsoft is moving into their famous embrace and extend mode... beware.

Slightly off track but IMO solid point: There is lack of good development tools on Linux to attract "morts". There are about 10M developers out there who may never write for Linux ever because Linux doesn't have anything that can match the luxury of Visual Basic style development environments. These guys are usually the people who spread the word at large to home and business users.

Another thing is the aged archirectures that underlies Linux and even Firefox. I was shocked to know that Firefox developers choose to copy Microsoft's COM specs interface by interface and label it as their XPCOM platform. I even heard few people braging about XPCOM as "next generation" platform on which everythig will be built on!! Guys, (1) it's outdated technology that even VB developer will refuse to depend on(2) open source doesn't have mean reverse engineering. Invent something!

Let me put it this way, Linux isn't for Windows...

Now what I mean

I don't think Linux SHOULD be made to cator to the windows people, Im sorry, but I don't see a problem with a clear seperation between those that want to use Linux, or BSD, or whatever other OS is out there, and those that use Windows and OS X. In all honesty, I don't think the masses will EVER move from something besides OS X and Windows, thats just how it is. Unless They go out of business, its just not going to happen.

Excellent points on linux. I'm a big linux fan and have felt for a while that despite the recent windows-esque distros, it's still far from desktop worthy. I also took your points about simplicity to heart. I am designing software with a couple friends and had planned on include a plethora of options, however after reading your points I realize that many of those features can be left out. Thanks for the guidance.

WWWAAAIIITTT...!!! So, you are saying that the object is to ATTEMPT to become the exact thing you're trying to replace?!?! That is clearly not innovative thinking at all. That's "let's work around our shortcomings of user interfacing and cheat a little bit" thinking.

I highly agree with some of your points, especially the migration. The rest of them can be summed up as: "Copy Windows". It's a good thing there are strong Linux supporters to shut you people the hell up before you ruin another perfectly good operating system.

Linux has the perfect amount of users: just enough to get widespread usage, active updating, and plenty of great software without having enough technically lacking end users so that the programmers have to spend time accomodating to people who "just love solitaire." Ever stop to think it might be purposefully complicated? That maybe they don't want everyone in the entire world to switch? There's a name for people who think like you: sellout. Get bent.

IMO THE REAL reason hold Linux back is that the major OEMs Like Dell, HP, and Gateway

that do not offer Linux to CONSUMERS.

These major computer suppliers are still protecting Microsoft's monopoly.

I've been using Linux for 11 years now.

I've never gotten a virus with Linux.
I've never used any anti-virus software with Linux.

Many Linux distros are dead simple to install.
Many Linux distros have superior package management.

All of this "Linux is not ready" is crap.

IMO the MAIN thing holding Linux back
is the anti-competitve, anti-consumer-choice computer suppliers.

ok... I wrote an article a while back in my blog about what's going to happen in the future... but it's just how I see it now... for reading that article, you have to be on my position (as a human I mean) which is:
- I belong to a third world country (Ecuador), where money for the individual is a real issue and we dont have the power of adquisition as other countries...
- most common architecture for PC; the most common used here (and probably most of Latin America and the world) is the i686 architecture... in the US the most common is PowerPC (correct if I'm wrong)...
- culture; we, the ecuadorians, are not looking for new tech, nor doing researches for what is best for us all, and this is because we either dont have money nor support, or most of us are not planning to change from one common tech to a new revolutionary tech (we're conservative on that aspect, well most of us, I'm not one of them)...

so, here's the article (for those who know spanish)... I'll translate it any of these days...

http://djmafia.blogspot.com/2005/06/bored-as-hell.html

In general, I agree with your points. I don't think the migrating is as important, except for easily transferring documents. After all, when you get a new Windows computer, it doesn't automatically transfer settings and preferences for you, either. The Macintosh has started doing this, however.

Other than interoperability with Windows, particularly with Windows printer sharing over networks, and having a clipboard that is common to all applications, there is one big category that I think you should add
to your list of four, and that is:

Discoverability.

This is not my idea, I'm not that smart, but something I picked up from an outstanding article online about the inadequacies of the CUPS web-based interface.

Discoverability means that menus and choices are so clear that, with a little fiddling, a naive user can figure out how it all works without a manual. Anyone who has used the CUPS web interface can see that it teaches absolutely nothing. It might be more convenient than editing a configuration file manually, but it is no more helpful for understanding the choices than the configuration file itself would be. Actually, some of those configuration files are well-enough documented that they are probably better than the CUPS web interface.

A lot of Linux is the same way. Sure, people can figure out the start menu, since it's just like Windows, but what about the control panel? There's no way that it can teach you anything, whereas Windows is almost annoyingly helpful with little messages that ask opinions and outline choices. Some Linux applications are similarly lacking in Discoverability.

VCRs were successful because

1. Everyone knows how to turn on the TV.
2. Everyone can figure out how to insert a tape into the VCR, which turns itself on, switches from whatever input source to tape, plays the tape, rewinds the tape, ejects the tape, and turns itself off.
3. No one cares if it flashes 12:00 forever.

The 'basic knowledge necessary' is 'turn on the TV' and 'insert the tape'.

The rental store will gladly guide you through the process of removing and returning the tape.

One may rebut: But a computer is a slightly more complex piece of hardware

To which I reply: Yes, but its the same people who use VCRs.

-jmr

What about OS X? There is no easy way to migrate your Windows settings over to your Mac. There is a significant difference in the way applications are installed/configured, yet people switch to it.

The simple reply is that:

A) Linux is not Windows, just as OS X is not Windows nor should it aspire to be.

B) Linux is designed to let it be what you want it to be. If I want my workstation nothing but a command line, I can choose to do that. If I want what you seem to, I can run something like Linspire, which is nothing but a click on a website to install something. Personally, I am a Gentoo user, its all about choice and Linux should never compromise on that, thats why most of the people who switched from Windows did it to begin with.

C) If you feel Linux is not ready, thats ok with me. But I use Linux for my desktop so its ready as far as I need it to be. Everyone has a different opinion as to what it needs to do to be "ready", my opinion is that the person needs to be ready for Linux, not the other way around.

Every few months there is another one of these articles.

Well, my points.

Why do we _want_ GNU/Linux to be a desktop OS. It's a server/workstartion OS in my opinion and not the domain for "regular people". Sure it can move in that direction but why do we care if it's not ready? Who said it had to be?

linux always ends up compared to windows and windows apps when talking about the desktop world. And normally it is a case of people wanting linux to be more like windows (ie dumb). Why is this the case, why is the writer advotating system bloat over some basic education of the user. Why not educate windows idiots to use linux productively instead of trying to dumb down linux to the windows level.

How hard really is it for a "regular person" to type one command line, or click a few buttons to install a required library. Once they have grapsed the concepts of a library, or dependencies, you are home free.

Try giving a blank system and a fedora DVD to Mum and see what happens. Then try with windows. How does it go? Now that is a basis for an article. Not some opinion on what you think normal people want.

If it's one thing we have learned is that regular people don't know what they want and are pretty much happy being fed any old junk. Sure let's try and build an easy to use system. But if that ends up meaning we create an ugly system to compensate for the lowest common denominator user then we have gone in the wrong direction.

God, look at American TV for an example.

Decided to write a comment ... ended up in a rant/troll ... so posted in my blog at http://www.micheldonais.com/?p=172

Basically, am saying that all the "desktop" problems are the same as the "shell" problems, with examples from my Linux/BSD learning experiences. Mostly has to come with people thinking they are holier than thou, and want to recreate the wheel ... and be better than everyone else.

Great article, Asa.

I have been saying this for a while, Even when my store was open (The Open Store). One of my personal projects have been to resolve some of these issues. I think portage would do well in this, we could set it up with other distro's i am sure. It handles adding software quite well, better than most. Problems with linux is and almost all Operating Systems, is its designed from an engineers point of view of whats simple. My father played with "computers" at MIT in the 50's, he has trouble working with XP. I like what apple has done to make the software simple. But seriously computers are difficult even with XP for most users. One thing Linux has done well in recent years is Hardware configuring. Think Knoppix. Well I will comment more later.

Matthew M. Conley
SimonTek

A nice looking, easy to install, easy of use media player would win the hearts of many. I find myself always going back to windows because all the media players for linux bites.

I think the folks who claim that the "big, Evil Corporations" like Dell are the only reason that windows has a near monoply on the desktop need to wake up. I am developer and I have played with linux myself and but for work I use windows. I also have several acquaintances, developers like myself, who have experimented with linux. But we all wound up back on windows for home desktop use. Why? Because linux is not our hobby. None of us wants to spend the weekend figuring out how to compile the latest version of.... whatever, or hunting for a stable driver for the soundcard. Its just a PITA.
Asa has it right. And if BECs aren't selling linux on the desktop it is because they know that they will need to support the morts and ... its just a PITA. Its a PITA on windows too but its just not as big a PITA. The improvements mentioned here would be good start towards fixing the PITA factor.

Asa, what you're talking about is Fedora Linux, not "Linux". You say Linux is not ready for desktop use but mean Fedora. I'm not an Ubuntu fanboy so don't understand this as "hey look my distro is better than yours", but (in reply to your complaints about simplicity) in Ubuntu I don't have to choose between a desktop environment, I get Gnome, which is a very simplistic and clean desktop (with a few exceptions like GEdit, which will hopefully be replaced with something lighter, for example Leafpad). The Games menu is in the 5th position, Office, Graphics, Internet is placed above it. In the multimedia menu, there is "Totem video player", "Music player" (Rhythmbox) and a simple CD player. No Helix, no choice between twenty different media players, and all titled very clearly.

Ubuntu is not shipped on 3-5 CD's, it's a single 586MB ISO. There's one application for each area. A text editor, Firefox as browser, Evolution as Outlook replacement, Rhythmbox as music library (though Muine would've been a better choice, in my opinion, but relies on Mono), Gaim, a Gnomeified OpenOffice. The software archive can be accessed through the "System" menu, new software can be installed with a few clicks, updates with about 3-4 clicks.

I could agree with you on the migration part, but that would be an enormous task. Even if only concentrating on MS products, and not all those other very popular Windows applications.

Ubuntu is not perfect, it still lacks graphical tools for some system administration stuff (new tools can be expected in Breezy Badger, version 5.10), but (in my opinion) to date it is a far better choice for a newcomer than other distros with a similar target group - due to its non-confusing simplicity. Just like Firefox.

The biggest problem still appears to be hardware support, WLAN for example. Though I personally don't have any problems with my hardware, which includes a GeForce, a Canon Powershot, a Soundblaster, a HP PSC, a USB stick, MP3 Player, ... Even a suitable application opens when I plug in an external device or insert a CD. (Photo import, file manager, burner, etc.)

You can argue Linux versus Windows all you want, but if you look at pirated software, you see the real story.

Linux is free, but, every day, people all over the world use pirated copies of Windows instead. Open Office and Gimp are free, but every day, people all over the world use pirated copies of Microsoft Office and Photoshop instead.

When Linux and Windows are put on a level playing field (Linux = free / pirated Windows = free) people choose Windows.

I think a lot of the inital assessment made was not informed enough. I migrate offices from Win to open source software and it can be a royal pain true enough. Without repeating some really well (and really crappy) written comments here I just wanted to let Asa know that FC4 is no way to judge what is open source software. Linux is the kernel, KDE and Gnome (or IceWM, Fluxbox etc...) are your window managers and then comes all the software (free no less) that is being either hailed or bitched about.

When we migrate an office, bookmarks, email (all of it), My Documents , My Music and My Pictures all make it over just fine. No they are not called My anything but it's all there, it all works and people are pretty happy.

These are computers Asa, not televisions. Firefox is great ( I crash it daily), Thunderbird is too (daily crasher as well) but mother of babbling god! Do you think OS migration is going to be as easy as sucking bookmarks? I myself, I don't think so. You make some good points, points I deal with on a daily basis. Thats why technical people get paid.

The main reason I'm still on Windows, and I'm sure this applies to a huge percentage of other Windows users, is the simple fact that games are designed for Windows. I don't have much use for a PC with 3GHz processor, a x800 or 6800 graphics card, when I can't play most games on it.

Not everyone is a gamer, and not everyone plays games all the time. Of course I use my PC for other things, e-mails, projects, research or just general Internet surfing. But I'm not about to sacrifice my games just to switch to Linux.

Oh and by the way, I did try using OpenOffice on a fresh installation of Windows. I tried my best to live with its shortcomings, but after a month or so, I gave up and returned to MS Office. Just trying to do simple bulleting and indentations left me feeling frustrated, which would have been simple in MS Office. I am never going back to OpenOffice, at least not until a few major releases.

Maybe linux shouldn’t spend time doing that because it’s a *really, really big job* that would involve uniting a ton of disparate groups. Maybe linux should continue to be a server and a workstation for those who want to own and configure their own computer. Or those who need their computer to be a versatile tool. Or those who hate large corporations. Or whoever wants to take the time, because it’s a little difficult.

I think linux would be available to the public here's why:
for linux to run you need people who know linux. This costs money, however not using commercial software doesnt cost money. Now its just a question of the right mixture: Linux Admins(uber geeks)/normal computer people -or- Less admins/Computer literate users. I think a linux training course would be very profitable and well if I ever make a business I'll make damn sure im running something free.

I am constantly amazed by the head in the sand attitude of the general Linux user/advocate, eg.

"Linux shouldn't sacrifice what it is for uptake."

Say what?

Usability > *

That's it!

If windows does something better then either emulate that or come up with something better again, eg. mount/umount.

With the tiny price of very large hard drives I do *not* want to worry about reusing packages that just make installing a nightmare. aptget, yast, et al, are all rubbish, a single self installing executable is vastly more useful especially given today's fast internet.

If you don't 100% agree with the OP author, then you are likely a Linux 'Elitist' in that you *want* it to be harder to use to make yourself seem clever.

ASA -

Excellent post, we need more people thinking clearly about Linux on the desktop. What we have right now isn't a good solution. Linux server side is great, but if it would make a ton of sense to do desktop linux right!

Why do people switch to firefox??
I didn't switch to firefox because it was just like IE... I switched because of, tabs and the find bar (THE BEST!!). I had a google popup blocker and I don't click on crap that runs active x on my machine so the only reason I needed to switch was a BETTER way of doing things, make me more productive and I will switch. I am not sure if I am a "regular user" but I think this is why people switch--if you see something that makes your work faster or something that makes you feel good (eye candy, asthetics, comfort) then you will want to switch.

So applying this theory to the desktop means linux must have better ways of interfacing with users, make them more productive, and make them feel good.

I'd say copy OS X to a large degree. This means pick one desktop (GNOME or KDE). Add OpenGL compositing / Luminocity, make it feel good. Then add the comfort and simplicity by supporting a good set of applications that people can use out of the box. And add features to the desktop to make them more successful / productive (e.g. Beagle for file management etc....)

I recently bought a mini mac to just try out Tiger and it's amazing. I'm amazed at stupid little eye candy tricks that actually help me understand what is going on. (Genie effect, it tells me where I need to look to find that application again...) Also the dock. It's nice and simple. I think menus are the wrong way to go, maybe it's not perfect but it's simple and that is where linux and windows are missing the point.

If someone (Novell / Redhat?) built a linux distro that had everything OS X has out of the box and it was free and didn't have all the virus / spyware / security issues windows has they would win the desktop market (corporations / schools / and even home users eventually).

Novell is even taking it a step further and creating a development environment that may rival vs.net / windows rad development tools that have created millions of lock in applications that tie enterprises to the windows desktop cause they can't run their custom software on anything else!

I ran a Cyber cafe of 15 diskless workstations running KDE on GNU/Linux for one year in a university town. Nobody every had a useability question for the desktop (honestly). Problems could be summed more or less about like this:

(1) printer problems (~70%)
These were two Brother 1440 laser printers under regular heavy use. They just didn't hold up very well at all.. Paper jams, paper out, toner out, or somebody printer a million page document and didn't know how to cancel it (putting a desktop icon up for clearing all user print jobs solved this problem). Also, it's important to install Adobe acrobat reader and set it as the default for PDFs, because the open source versions don't render properly, every now and then.

(2) Mozilla crashing (~20%)
We tried numerous versions of Mozilla... Thunderbird was the best for a while but nothing worked even reasonably well until firefox came along. When you have numerous desktops running with Mozilla all day and late into the night, you get really sick of how often it freezes--and freezes up a whole user account, not just Mozilla itself. Firefox is *reasonably* stable but frequently has these brief moments of unresponsiveness. Konqueror was far better in the senses of speed, responsiveness, and that it never crashes a whole user session, but it had some rendering issues and took a lot of initial tinkering to get fully functional with Java, flash, etc. Recent versions have pretty much put the rendering problems to rest, but I've yet to see a distro that has it fully configured for web browsing out of the box. I think it has far more potential, but just lacks the TLC it needs to be the better browser.

(3) how to use a particular web site (~5%)
It's amazing how people sometimes blame the computer for badly designed or buggy web sites.. Or expect our staff to know how to use every web site on the Internet.

(4) how to connect to AOL or MSN instant messenging (~5%)
Kopete and Gaim seem to work generally ok, but people don't like the fact that the lack some of the features people are used to. I am not big on IM, myself, so I am not going to elaborate on this one.

I should also note that people seemed to take two different reactions to OpenOffice: (1) refuse to even try using it; or (2) play with it for about 5 minutes and do just fine with a few common questions like, "Where is the word count?". For OpenOffice, we installed all the Microsoft compatible fonts, set the default font to Times New Roman (or something very like, I forget exactly) and set the default saves to export to Office 97. Otherwise, you'll have seriously problems with people.. They do their homework or what not and freak when they find it coming up in a bizarre font or not openning at all, because it's not in Word format.

But, again, people have no problems with word processing, spreadsheets, or presentations if they are willing to give it a try. I think somewhere around half just refuse to try at first site, for some reason.

It's funny to be asked, "What version of Windows is this?". People tend to find things just fine on the menus and you see them playing the various games and exploring... finding features like multiple-copy/paste.. Xeyes, etc.. They tend to have fun, and sometimes you here them exclaim (excitedly), "This is Linux!".

Matthew

Linux is not attempting to be windows, its an operating system that's all, to expect a win XP clone when u install is absurd. windows require office, nero and many other 3rd party products to even get close to functionality of a FREE distro of linux such as fedora and the cost is excessive. I was a sworn ms user untill i came accross fedora and will NOT look back, i taught myself howto use it and accepted that it is not windows, and now its my 1st preference.
Can windows import settings from linux during a standard installation?? You ppl are typical of MS users, put useless crap all over my machine and numerous unneccessary registry entries throughtout my system for the purpose of easy to use unstable garbage of an OS... time is valuable so i'd rather spend an extra 30 mins installing something that works stably as opposed to reducing install time in favour of the famed blue screen of death or having explorer die on me daily for no apparent reason.
Don't get me started on security...

I am not convinced by your article.

First issue (migration):
Basically you're saying that if you can't move settings from Windows to another OS, then that makes it not ready for desktop? What if you started afresh? Does that make your desktop ready then? MacOS can't be ready for desktop, because Windows settings don't go over perfectly.

2nd issue (stability):
Most distros solve this problem with apt-get, certainly not Fedora based on what you have described. It basically downloads your package and all its dependancies in one step doing all the stuff behind your back. This gives you the benefits of reusing shared libraries while making it easy. This is the same as if you tried to download the lastest version of DirectX. It gives you a program that downloads all the stuff behind your back and installs it.

3rd issue (simplicity):
WinAmp, Excel, Access wouldn't have made more sense if I didn't know what they were. And Quicktime doesn't tell the time??? GEdit has a billion options is rather an application preference, not really a Linux not ready for desktop issue. People will use GEdit like a text editor with out touching any preferences much as you never touch the preferences for notepad. Only those who wish to do more than simple word processing will ever touch preferences.

4rd issue (comfort):
There was a research in Thailand where a group of people who've never touched a computer before actually found Linux to be easier (more confortable) to use. OK and Cancel buttons being reversed has nothing to do with any OS's being ready for the desktop or not. Mounting the drive is just as confusing to a newbie as the A: C: D: E: drive (where's B: ?). In fact, in Windows, you actually have to unmount a Usb drive before removing it. Macs aren't ready for the desktop because you drag the CD into the garbage can to eject it.

Your article seems to be more of a "Linux is not ready for becoming Windows" rather than it not being "ready for desktop". You focus too much on the fact that Linux doesn't operate exactly like Windows rather than it being not ready for desktop. I think issues such as lack of documentation, GUIs for the configuration files, and lack of software support from companies (Adobe, Game companies) are more important for Linux development on desktop rather than swapping positions of two buttons.

I am completely against making Linux more like Windows - unless your plan is to wait until "enough" people have migrated, and then Linux can go its own way. Why make Linux look, taste, and smell like Windows? Wouldn't it then just be - Windows? Linux is not like Mozilla. Instead, Linux is to computer hardware as Mozilla is to operating systems. When you see it like that, then Linux is just as successful as Mozilla. Linux has a lot to learn about usability for the average user - but in the world of enthusiasts (and this world continues to grow) - Linux rules. I agree about the problem of having the correct linked libraries consistent accross distros, but really, this is the 21st century, and disk space is so cheap that it no longer makes as much sense to have shared libraries. If an application vendor wants an app to run on as many Linux distros as possible with the least amount of fuss, then maybe they should think about statically linking the exact libraries that make this version work.

The problem with Linux and the desktop market is that Linux is not the same tool as other desktop OS's. Sure it can do a lot of those things (like help you read email, and compose presentations for work) but it can doa whole lot more. If the goal of Linux was to be a desktop OS then it is failing. But I really don't think that's the goal. If you want a 100% desktop OS that "everyone" can use, then look elsewhere. If you are a software vendor and you want the largest possible userbase, then you should continue to make your software work on Linux, becasue afterall, enthusiasts are part of the market also.

Linux is a kernel, it makes no sense to say that Linux should provide a way to migrate configuration from Windows to Linux (Imagine yourself asking that feature to Linus Torvalds and you'll see that it makes no sence). So, comparing Linux to Windows is like comparing apples to chairs.
Now a more useful comparition is KDE+Linux or KDE+FreeBSD or Gnome+OpenBSD vs Windows or just the desktop, KDE vs Windows (after all, when you say Windows you mean the desktop part, almost nobody means the the web server or some other thing which might run on Windows).
Having agreed on that, codding something to import config from Windows to KDE or Gnome would be so hard and useless (because Windows is so different to KDE and Gnome that only little bits could be imported) that would make no sense. Even migration between Gnome and KDE is so hard it is not worth it.
The main reason why people are slower at adopting Linux+KDE/Gnome as the desktop is because installing it means either getting rid of Windows or performing some operations that could corrupt the Windows install. That is different for Firefox. ***I wonder how many people would be using Firefox if the easy way to install would mean deleting IE (even with your conf migrations) or there's a harder way in which you may not delete IE, but you have to be an expert or you would scrow it up***
My answer: Firefox would have even less users than Linux. Comparing Firefox's success to Linux+KDE/Gnome's success on the desktop is comparing apples with chairs.

This is sad. Truly.

Windows users who haven't been exposed to other OSes will never understand. Windows has about a billion UI flaws. It's *not* intuitive. It's what Microsoft has forced down it's users throats and most Windows users can't figure out other OSes because "everything *else* is backwards".

Why do you think Apple never Windows-ized Mac OS? Could it be they might have had a few better UI designs?

Now to say that Linux has great UI is a difficult topic, considering one has the *choice* of UI they'd like. I won't tread too far here, because of the choices that are available... However, to say that Linux needs to reverse OK and Cancel buttons shows just how Windows-ized your brain is, and you should probably try to think outside of the 'box' you've been squared in to.

The argument for easier software installation? Really? Doesn't Windows-easy software installation equal virii propogation? Doesn't it equal malware and spyware? Doesn't it euqal an administrators nightmare? I think Windows "ease of system screwup" is a high point that Linux can ignore, actually.

Erm, simplicity is there as much as it is in Windows. Again, check the Windows UI quirks before spouting off on another OS'es UI. Don't tell me the Windows Control Panel is intuitive. Don't tell me Windows software is intuitive. It may be dumbed-down to hell, but that doesn't it make it intuitive.

I think a big point here too is that Linux doesn't need Windows users who just can't grok anything but Windows. We may have the greatest thing since sliced bread, but most Windows users enjoy being told what they should like, and Linux ain't it.

Lastly, to all the microwits out there who make GIMP and Photoshop comparisons - think before you speak. If you paid even a DIME for the GIMP, perhaps you could make your uninformed and ignorant comparisons. But, since you paid nothing for the software, and you gave nothing to further the GIMP project by spewing nothing but hot air, perhaps you could just hold that hot air in, hmm?

For the price of Photoshop, it *should* kick everything else's ass. Hope you didn't steal your copy.

Hi. I'm Massimo, the author of the original OSNews article. I'm amazed at how cite me, but you clearly did NOT read my article (and the previous blog post), because I just addressed what you say on my article.

To put it simply:
The first issue, migration, is pretty serious.For "Regular People" to adopt Linux (which usually means leaving Windows) Linux is going to need a serious migration plan. It will need to install on machines next to Windows...

That's why i proposed a standalone,ready-to-go machine like the TuxMini. People use Macs, yet they don't install MacOS next to Windows, isn't it?

When Regular People fire up the Linux desktop for the first time, the browser, office suite, email client, IM client, file manager, etc, each need to carry over as much as possible of the Windows application settings and all or very nearly all of the user data. Without this, the hill is just too steep to climb and Regular People will not make the climb.

Very few people I know re-import settings when reinstalling Windows. Let alone new MacOS users. About user data:
-copy user data on temporary storage
-copy data from temporary storage to /home
-you're ready
Or, if you're dual-booting
(1)-copy data from your windows partition to /home
(2)-go and look in your windows partition, perhaps symlinking it from /home (you can do it from Konqueror,so no "cryptic" CLI is needed. just as easy as creating a link in Windows)

I'm talking about a stable API that doesn't require the user jump through hoops when they want to download a new application from download.com. A user should be able to install Fedora Core 4 and go grab the latest Firefox release from Download.com and have it work without the need for finding and installing compat-libstdc++ or whatever.

Package managers already take care of this issue. If you somehow don't like them, static binaries are the ready-to-go solution, as I proposed here.

Just because you can include a feature doesn't mean that you should. Just because you can provide a user preference doesn't mean you should. I don't want to start a desktop war but I really gotta say to the distros, pick a desktop and be happy. Regular People shouldn't have to (guess or learn enough to) choose between Gnome and KDE when they're installing your product

The whole point of my OSNews article is: WE'RE NOT TARGETING REGULAR PEOPLE STILL. NOT YOUR GRANDMA, NOT MY GRANDMA. WE'RE TARGETING NON-GEEK BUT SOMEHOW SKILLED COMPUTER USERS LIKE THE PEOPLE THAT COMPOSE A LOT OF THE FIREFOX USER BASE. I'm sorry I'm going to scream this, but I have obviously the need to, since you didn't understand what I wrote on OSNews (that could be my fault, of course). These users are IMHO absolutely capable to understand what the existence of 2 desktop managers mean. Nevertheless the distro could install one of default, and leaving the other as an "advanced" option. Just as almost all desktop-oriented distros do now.

Gedit has about 30 user preferences spread across 5 tabs in a preferences window -- Notepad has about three.

That's why Notepad sucks. And stop treating users as complete morons. We're talking of a clever niche, here, so your arguments don't apply.

Linux must feel comfortable to Windows users. Most people using computers today have been at it for a while now and they've been at it on Windows. Don't mess with their basic understanding of how things work.

Linux is really comfortable from the GUI point of view to Windows users. I know, I put a lot of windows-only people in front of KDE on Knoppix and in 5 minutes they were productive. They just told me "oh,ok, the menu is that K. where is word? ah,openoffice writer? uh,ok,it's just like word. cool."

Regular people do not know what it means to "mount a drive" and they shouldn't have to.

There should be automount for all, of course. But knowing the concept is a useful plus and it's damn easy to understand.

Regular People don't want two clipboards that seem to constantly overwrite each other.

This is really something that must be fixed. One good point, at last!

Anyway, what have you said? The bazillion banalities I read everyday on /. and OSNews comments. I at least suggested we can win a significant niche by re-focusing our targets (young curious people, looking for coolness, cheapness stability and comfortable when working with PCs - this DOES NOT MEAN GEEKS. this means for example most students.) and building a winning product. You -like a million people,it seems,sadly- still want to start from a hacker system to go directly to grandmas and the 100% battle. Hmmm, how realistic are the aims of the Linux community.

Start to value what the community has done until now. Start to do marketing about it, like Mozilla Firefox did.

And, oh, I WAS NOT COMPARING FIREFOX TO LINUX. Of course if Linux was as easy to adopt as Firefox (that's essentially click-and-go) it would be already on much more desktops than now. It is just that Firefox teached us what's the right users niche. But, again, you did not read my article.

Massimo, I did read your article, several times. I think your "magic bullet" plan of just get it on a system and people will like it is a no go. Heck, we were just a browser and we couldn't get bundled on any major OEMs. I disagree with you that package managers solve the problem that most Windows users want solved -- the ability to download and install software from a site like download.com. Nor do I think that users are complete morons. We didn't design Firefox for morons. We designed Firefox for the 95% case (IE users) which bridge the full spectrum from my grandmother to a university computer science student. We didn't tackle a "niche" and I thikn if that's where Linux is going, it's going to be wiped out. Linux needs to make some big gains and fast. Linux already has a desktop nich with geeks. It doesn't need another one. It needs to break into the mainstream.

And if you really think that "Linux is really comfortable from the GUI point of view to Windows users." then I guess we're at a fundamental disagreement that underlies both of our entire posts so I sort of have to just disagree and give up trying to convince you of anything.

- A

Hold on... I want my applications to re-use code libraries. I want the APIs of those libraries to be dynamic and change quickly as the need arises, rather than stagnating for years like their Windows counterparts (or (cough)X-Windows!(/cough)).

Making Linux "familiar" to a Windoze user seems a lot like removing the engine from a car because it's too loud for someone who's used to a bicycle.

I agree that better migration should be implemented, but there will also come a point when this migration is like providing a "push pedals option", when you have the accelerator right there in front of you.

If these were the only impediments, Linspire would sell through the roof. There is one major obstacle and only one that prevents anyone else from competing in a Windows world and that is simply compatibility. Firefox works the same way on a users PC as Internet Explorer. It is compatible with the same websites, and as far as the user is concerned it is simply and upgrade of the web browser that they currently use.

If Linux could run all of the users software, as simply and easily as Windows it could be a viable alternative. And of course, it must come pre-installed on the PC. A user is simply not going to install another OS if they have already paid for Windows.

Of course, the "Microsoft Tax" is a whole different issue entirely...

Craig

I really use GNU/Linux since years. Now I use gentoo because it is the *only* OS on that I really feel comfortable. Redhat and derivates are a rpm nightmare; debian and debian-based liked for years but no more after I knew about gentoo.
But comparation between my linux system and windows is easy:

-K3B for burning cd-dvd. It works. no more scsi emulation. it works very very fine.
-Stability. Windows crashed every day. I thought it could be a hardware problem, but I saw it is not. With this system --never-- crashes.
-Software. I really DO NOT need to go to a stupid download.com site. All I have to do is an emerge *package* and thats all.
-Power. I control everything that runs on my machine. and it is optimized for my CPU.

But unfortunately, this system could not be administrated by anyone of my family windows users because this needs some knowledge.

May be someday will appear a new GNU/Linux based OS (or a libre OS) that can be used by everyone.

Anyway: windows cannot be used by anyone. I have *always* to advice them: do not use internet explorer. update your antivirus. Dont download software!! do not open office files from emails!! no! you cannot do that you are not Administrator...

Maybe linux is not ready for the desktop. but I've seen windows that makes me cry: full of spyware, virus, adware..... "my machine is very slow" well f*ck you... use legal software or opensource software. and stop downloading stupid software from download.com!!!

i see your points and they are pretty valid. apart from the ok/cancel arguement. if a person gets confused by that and runs crying back to windows, all the better. all they end up doing is bringing the reputation of the OS down by being idiots eg running as root and shutting off all security measures. let MS keep them. they can bring down windows. i feel that linux is a better option than windows for the cusaul user who just browses the internet or uses office suites as these come preinstalled: firefox and openoffice. the gimp is for graphical editors, IM clients come standard and media players too. i will concede that mplayer needs to be downloaded and installed since the kaffiene player is buggy on SuSE 9.3 but RPM files are an excellent addition to linux. these are even more simple than .exe since you click them and install them with YaST all in the GUI. if the casual user switches to linux then they will almost certainly have a more advanced friend helping them. this friend would be able to tell them that linux can view the windows partition and cop files from it. viola! no file loss.

to the guy saying that linux cannot play MP3 files, the reason is because of legal requirements. they have to pay to offer software to read it and this is the problem. since they are non-profit (mostly) they cannot offer the capability out of the box. however for CD rippage they offer ogg which is a superior format (don't argue, it is).

As a long time Linux user, I think the article was quite good. For me, Linux is actually working the way I want it to, but I can see (from your article) how the environment looks to a non-technical user and to some extent i think you are correct in your statements. However I think that the suggestions that you are talking about should be implemented on a "Distribution" basis. I think part of the reason Linux and BSD are able to move ahead so much in terms of features, security, speed etc.. is their lack of stable API. So most distributions , or most existing Linux users aren't going to be happy with a stable API. There needs to be a distribution which is geared mainly for ex-windows users, which does have a stable API and does have apps which are available from say download.com. It can have buttons around the wrong way etc..
(Maybe linspire can take on these recommendations).

That way, existing Linux users aren't loosing what they love about Linux, and that is the choice. I also have a machine which shipped with OSX, but now runs Linux. Now there is nothing wrong with OSX, and its arguably one of the better interfaces out there for new and existing users. But I like my desktop to work the way "I" want it to, something OSX doesn't allow. Loosing the ability to do this under Linux isn't something that should, or is, going to happen with any of the communities of major Desktop Environments. No one codes things they don't use.

my 2c

A very good point of view, but please do not put KDE and Gnome on the same plate.
In my experience, with "cluster" customers (finance, government with thousands of workstations) has showed Gnome is a piece of nice toy: Windows users move with less effort to Linux + KDE and do not like Gnome.
Their judice was: the graphic of Gnome is better, but with KDE we are able to perform all the task we are used with Windows. Try to associate an extension to a program or define a new type of extension to figure out why Windows users prefer KDE!
Despite KDE is less beatiful, in my opinion is still better than Gnome that seems to be something for "I'm use only Linux" users.
But a lot of work must be done, and that's not so easy; I think X architecture is one of the milestones and one of the bigger obstacles on the Linux development path. Probably it's not a case Mac OS X does not use X! Will Cairo solve some annoying issues? Will Cairo, for example, allow a decent integration between an application (Firefox?) and printing applet/panel, just for the sake of an example?
But applications, Firefox too, might be better starting from today, for example releasing KDE and/or Gnome specific versions will be integrated by Linux distributions, but it seems no one want to choose!
A good example of "technological battle" is Kontact vs. Evolution! More applications should choose a desktop manager or support all.

Yeah right! 'Helix' is unknown to people. The same people remember 'Nero' means CD Burner software, right? Also, why should each and every piece of software be downloadable from download.com? Why isn't a packaging system good enough for mom and dad? Something like 'synaptic' is a gazillion times more trustworthy than a link which appears in mom and dad's email screaming 'Download the latest firefox for your PC now!!'

So tired of this clipboard whining.

http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/~njl98r/clipboard/

If you find applications that are buggy, tell the author, don't write blog posts whining about how Linux "isn't ready" like some OS News newbie. It's hard to imagine that someone who presumably doesn't like "Firefox is junk" posts that ought to have been Bugzilla submissions would do something like this, but there you are...

Nick, actually, I would much rather see a blog post saying "Firefox is junk" than a bug in bugzilla saying the same thing. I'd much rather see almost all reports of Firefox issues going through all of the other available channels besides Bugzilla. We've got Hendrix for general feedback, Reporter for broken websites, the MozillaZine forums for bug, feature, and build discussion and we've got a handful of blogs for other discussion.

Also, I'm not whining at all. I'm just offering up my view of what needs to happen for Linux to gain more widespread adoption. Take it or leave it.

- A

Well written Asa, I totally agree.

Ubuntu Linux is going in that direction.

Shital Shah : there is an equivalent to Visual Basic for GNU/Linux, Gambas ( http://gambas.sourceforge.net/ )

Just wanted to point out how the installation of programs is much simpler and easier in linux than windows:

windows: every app is different. Some come .exes, some with .msi, some ask me where I want to install, some don't. More than that, uninstalling is a big pain.
To uninstall Word, I need the installation disk.
To uninstall Norton Antivirus, I need the original media. WTF?
windows: if you remove the uninstall file, you're fuxxored. If you accidentally remove the program files, you are fuxxored as well. I am left with a half-dead NAV because I could not uninstall it (no installation media) and removed it by hand. I still have to press ok 15 times when starting Word because it could not run the antivirus to check the doc.

linux: in gentoo: emerge whatever. Upgrading: emerge -u whatever. Removing: emerge unmerge whatever. Then remove the .whatever dir in /home.

I've been using computers since 1979, when the physics lab had an IMSAI 8080 set up that used paper tape to boot to dual 8 inch floppy drives. The IMSAI 8080 ran CP/M and it was simple and straightforward to use. You fed in the paper tape, then you made sure the 8 inchy floppy boot disk was in the A: drive, and then you typed in commands into the terminal once the system came up. It worked. You didn't have to worry about stuff.

My first computer, an Apple II+, also just worked. The machine booted from ROM and gave you a prompt. It just worked.

My first IBM PC was pretty much the same deal as the Apple, except that you had to have a DOS boot disk in the A: drive when you turned on the IBM PC. Then you typed commands in when the system came up from the floppy drive. It was all straightforward. It just worked.

I've been trying to learn linux and haven't gotten anywhere. Linux doesn't work. Let me give you 6 simple examples: [1] AbiWord. It doesn't work. It's broken at a basic level. To print you have to mess with CUPS. And CUPS is a disaster. I was never able to get CUPS to work. Apparently CUPS works something like sendmail, and you have to tell the printer to LISTEN to some cockamamey IP address before you can get it to print. What I want to point out here is how insane that idea is. The notion that, first, you assume the default is a network with 10,000 computers hooked up to another network of 10,000 printers, so you have to default all the printers to ignore whatever you print until you turn one specific printer on. That's crazy. An individual user will NEVER have a setup like that. NEVER. *Ever*. Period. And the notion that, second, you are lying to the user. Linux implies that when AbiWord tells the printer to print, then it will print. You'd think. Wouldn't you? Why else have a menu that you can use to print stuff? But no. It's all a lie. Turns out that when you send a print job to CUPS, you get nothing, even after configuring the printer, unless you do a lot of complicated mumbo-jumbo that I never was able to figure out. That's insane. It's like setting up a car to start only after you turn the ignition key _and_ get out and open the trunk _and_ slam the rear left door twice _and_ honk the horn 3 times in a row _and_ switch the headlights on and off 7 times. It's stupid. No sensible person would expect a car to work that way, and no sane person would set up a car so it would only start if you followed that procedure. To start a car, you turn the key in the ignition. (On really old cars, you press a button while pulling the choke lever. But same idea.) To print in linux, you should tell linux what printer you have and then choose PRINT from the menu in AbiWord. If it doesn't work that way in linux, it's broken. It works that way on the Mac in OS 9 and it works that way in Windows. Linux has broken printing and it lies to me. I don't like functions in computers that are broken (like the early Windows 1.0 that shipped word processors but had no printer drivers -- remember that winner?) and I especially don't like a computer to lie to me. I won't even go into the issue of how on linux everything emulates postscript, including a dot matrix printer driver. That's so crazy it sounds like something from the chill-out tent at Burning Man. I won't even discuss that, it's too ludicrous.

[2] Installing new software. I began to see a common pattern in all linux operations when I tried installing new software. Linux lied to me once again. To install software on every other computer I ever used for the past 25 years, I copy the software onto the system disk and then use the software. On every other computer, that works. But not on linux. In linux, if you copy software onto your linux drive and double click on it you get nothing. Drop to the command line and tell the software to run. Nothing. Instead, you have to do crazy pointless things like download libs. Why? What was the developer doing instead of putting together a program that worked...smoking dope? On every other computer, the developers include everything a program needs to run -- not on linux. On linux you download the program, then you get dependency hell. This is a euphemism. "Dependency hell" is a fancy way of saying "The linux programmer was too stupid or too careless or too incompetent to actually include all the stuff the program needs to run. So you have to clean up the stupid ignorant incompetent linux programmer's mess." I don't like cleaning up a programmer's messes. When I did that I was called a supervisor and I got paid for it. I'm not being paid to run linux as an end user. So I'm not interesting in cleaning up programmer's messes. I also don't like being lied to. Even when I was getting paid to clean up programmer's messes, I wouldn't stand for some programmer lying to me. When a program gets distributed the obvious and sensible conclusion is that it's ready to run. You download it, you figure it will run. Guess what? In linux, it usually doesn't run. And so, when you find out the program doesn't run because it's missing libgetc and blah blah blah, you realize...hey. Looka this! You've been lied to. Yes, this program is ready. No, it isn't, hahahaha, we lied. Look at the silly expression on your face, you luser. Oh? Look at this. It's my ass leaving linux behind. Now who's the luser?

[3] Linux seems built on a simple philosophy -- find out what the user needs to do and prevent it. Case in point: I downloaded a big application package, Planet CCRMA, and followed the directions for installing it. Didn't work. The instructions included a lot of arcane shell commands to install the software. After I ran the shell commands, nothing was installed. Nobody could explain this. You go online and tell people, "Those commands don't work," and you know what you get? Laughed at. "Ask for a refund," they giggle. Funny. Meanwhile, nothing works, and none of the so-called linux "gurus" can explain why. So I tried a bunch of stuff. I tried using a linux text editor to edit the config files. Whoops! YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO ACCESS THIS FILE. What the hell is that? Let's think about this. You have a config file and you have a text editor, and you cannot use the text editor to edit the config file. That's insane. That's not just hard to use, that's actively _user-hostile_. That's finding out what the user needs to do and actively *preventing* it. Around this time I started to get a grasp on the linux way of doing things. First, lie to the user. Second, tell the user "in order to do X, you must first do Y" -- then prevent the user from doing Y. Third, make fun of the user when s/he points this out. There's a word for that: evil. Linux is evil. And the linux user community seems to have come straight out of the movie THE EXORCIST. The only thing that surprises me about the linux online community is that when a n00b asks for help, their heads to don't rotate 360 degrees while spitting up pea soup. Linux seems *designed* to frustrate you. And you have to admire the ingenuity with which linux is designed to frustrate you. I'm not a complete novice. You'd think I'd be able to figure out how to get linux to do *something.* But I never could. The people who designed linux must have spend millions of man-hours figuring out all the possible ways of getting something done in linux, and then carefully deducing out with diabolical ingenuity how to block the user and stymie the user and smack the user down hard when the user tries every one of those myriad ways of getting something done. That's pretty impressive, when you think about it. Just imagine all those combinatorial ways of combining commands, and yet linux manages to make sure they all give an error message. Every since combination. Every single option. All designed to block the end user. That's an amazing achievement, in a perverse sort of way. Admirable -- but sick. And crazy.

[4] Command line. Look, I started with a command line. It was okay. In 1979. We didn't have anything better. The command line is still the best way to do some types of tasks. Batch jobs, for instance. If I want to rename or delete or copy every file with the extension *.mp3 on my drive, you can bet I don't want to clik on all 57,291 of those icons. But we are not living in 1979 anymore. The idea that you have to drop to the command line to do anything significant, like install software, is insane. That's 25 years out of date. Every time I use linux I feel like I'm back in the physics lab with a monochrome screen and an all-uppercase terminal. Linux should come with 8 inch floppy drives and a paper tape reader to boot the 8" drives. This idea of typing in arcane commands to do everything is nuts. Whoever dreamed that up was drunk or stupid. That may have been fine for 1970, or even 1979, but it's the 21st century, and let me tell you, I've gotten use to installing software by double-clicking it, or installing printers by scrolling down a list and choosing one, or setting up a sound driver by popping in a CD and letting it autoplay and autoinstall. If linux can't do that, what the hell is it good for? I'm not interested in living in 1979. Been there. Done that. I was using computers then. I don't want to go back to 1979 and I don't think any other users do either, except for some linux geeks who seem to love memorizing and typing 59-char-long strings of gobbledygook.

[5] Mount and umount. What is this? Look, if there's one thing I hate, it's being lied to. When a machine tells me DO X AND Y WILL HAPPEN, and I do X and Y doesn't happen, it's baseball-bat time. I get lied to enough by people. Just turn on the news from Washington. Ever work for a boss? People lie to you all the time, that's bad enough. I don't need to be lied to by my machines. Think about this -- how far would you get if your car had a fuel gauge that read HALF FULL when it was actually EMPTY? Your ass would wind up stranded on the freeway in the middle of nowhere. You'd be walking home. Linux does the same thing. Linux lies to me, and it lies to me *constantly*. Linux presents me with a bunch of nice icons of disk drives. But when I click on one, guess what? It's not mounted! So I can't write to it! I can't read from it! This is insane. I know the reasons for this, I understand that in linux everything is treated like a file -- I just don't care. If a hard drive icon shows up on my desktop I should be able to read from it and write to it. If I can't, don't show it to me. The idea that you have to MOUNT and UMOUNT something like a CD-ROM drive to read from it is beyond crazy. It's socipathic. There's no point to it. If you need to mount and umount in linux, make it transparent to the user. If you can't make it transparent to the user, then you're an incompetent programmer and you need to get a real job fixing parking meters or cleaning toilets.

[6] File permissions. This is intolerable. Look, linux has a long history of running on large computer systems, there are good historical reasons for su and blah blah blah, fine, but there should at least be two basic installs of linux. One in which you don't have to jerk around with file permissions because you're THE ONLY USER and another install in which you have the normal infuriating pointless linux file permissions and user/superuser hierarchy and all that headache. The headache stuff is necessary for a computer used by many people, or for a big network. Here's a news flash: most computers in America are used by one person. Most people with a desktop box in their den do not run a network of 28,000 machines. In fact, I would venture to say that no people with a desktop box in their den _ever_ run a large network. So all this user permission crap is lethal. I got to the point with debian where every time I su'd to do anything I was getting asked my password. I would have to type in my passwrod 50, 70, 80 times a day. Enough. I don't need that garbage. It's like going into the kitchen with your wife and having her shout "Who are you? How did you get here?" That's not an operating system, it's Alzheimer's. Within 3 days I got so sick of it I never wanted to see Debian again. Ever. Red Hat wasn't any better. More su, more demands for my password. Then a couple of weeks went by and the ulimate betrayal, the ultimate slap in the face -- I tried to log on and couldn't remember my password. Here was MY computer in MY house refusing to let ME, the owner, log on. I wiped that linux distro. One thing I won't tolerate is a machine that refuses to let me use it. Lawn mower doesn't want to start? Throw it out. Get another one. Computer won't let me log on? Wipe the hard disk, get another operating system.

The pimple-faced 14-year-olds will be out in force giggling over what a moron I am and how clueleess I am and how I'm not a 1337 haxx0r and a hopeless n00b and [fill in the infantile insult]. I don't care. I know computers inside and out, I've been using 'em since long before there was a Windows or there was a Mac OS, let alone a Mac OS X, and if I can't get anywhere with linux, no one can. The linux people need to shape up and get some basic stuff done.

First, stop lying to the user. If a drive icon shows up, let 'em read from the drive. That's basic. if you click print, the goddamn document should print. Don't lie to the user and tell the user you're PRINTING and then not print. Second, the linux people have GOT to get a one-click application install working. That's basic. You've already done that with linux installs. (I'm not talking about Gentoo here, Gentoo is an exception.) Red Hat has essentially a once click install. Debian is essentially a one-click install. Ubuntu is a one-click install. Puppy Linux is a zero-click install -- Puppy Linux just works with nothing to configure! So if the linux people can do all that with something as complex as an OS install, they've G*O*T to be able to get a one-click application install going. It can't be impossible. Windows does it, the Mac does it, for god's sake even CP/M did it under GEM back in the day. You want to explain to me why linux is lagging behind CP/M? Third, stop frustrating and blocking the user. If a user needs to do something, don't EVER give a message like YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO ACCESS THIS FILE. Goddammit, it's my computer and I'm just trying to use it, what the hell's your problem, linux? Fourth, ditch the command line except for exotic special circumstances. I really have to harp on this one. This bugs me. We got away from DOS allegedly because it was hard to use. I never found it that hard to use, but, the command line did have some big limitations. When it came to graphics programs or music programs or certain types of word processing functions like italicizing a big block of text, I learned to love a GUI in a hurry. Asking a user to go back to the year 1970 in order to use linux is unacceptable. We're beyond that. Get rid of the command line, it's over, done, stick a fork in it, the command line is toast. Fifth,
hide the mount and umount crap. I don't want to deal with mounting anything, not even a horse. I don't need it, and the OS should be smart enough to realize that if I click on a drive icon, I want to read it or write to it and the computer should do mount it or umount it automatically and transparently. Don't give me a set of complicated and long-winded and incoherent reasons why you can't do that. Other computers manage it. When I click on the D: hard drive in Windows, I can move files and read from 'em, when I click on the MY HARD DRIVE icon in Mac OS, ditto. Why can't linux do that? mount and umount is stupid, it's pointless, get rid of this mount and umount garbage. And the last is the worst. For single-user dekstop computers there is NO REASON FOR FILE PERMISSIONS. At all. Period. Windows and Mac users and even old CP/M users back in the 1970s didn't have to jack around with file permission crap. There should be an install on linux that gets rid of this time-wasting frustrating file permission insanity. When it's a one-user computer on one desktop that's not part of a big network, file permissions are demented and counterproductive. As a computer user in my own home, I never ever ever want to be told YOU DO NOT HAVE PERMISSION TO [do X]. When I get told that, I shut the computer down and wipe the hard drive and replace the OS with another operating system that doesn't jerk me around and tell me I can't do the things I need to do.

Linux has a lot of great features. But the 6 problems above made it unusable for me. Until linux fixes these basic problems, I'm never to go beyond Puppy Linux running from a CD or Knoppix booting off a CD, and those are toy hobby distros. They're okay for surfing the net, but because you don't have a big writeable disk with an active filesystem, you can't do much.

It needs a real Office suite.

The biggest problem to me is simply that some things are fundamentally unusable. In particular, I'm looking at you, OpenOffice 1.x. I've tried to like it, but it's so bad for what I do (both word processing and spreadsheets) that I'm forced to maintain a Windows box as well. I do my science on two wonderful, stable, lovable linux boxes that have been running for almost a year without reboot, and I write my articles on Windows while leaking memory like a sieve. It's pathetic. I'm willing to search for preferences if I have to, but if I can't embed a graphic in a document and have it stay where I put it when I save the document*, I just can't use linux. End of story. And Office-type suites are the backbone of corporate use.

I cannot stand Windows much longer. The sad thing is, linux just doesn't meet all of my needs. It's so bad that I'm seriously considering OSX, which I don't like for its own reasons.

But, a nicely written article. Asa, of your four points, I have to say migration seems like a less-than-horrible problem and stability is pretty good with Ubuntu, my current distro of choice (and the 11th I've used). Lack of simplicity in preferences is still a bear, and this contributes to comfort problems as well.

* Yes, I know this only happens when saving as a .doc, and yes, I know this isn't fair. Tough. No one in the real world takes .sxw's. If I were religious, I would pray that OpenOffice 2.1 works absolutely flawlessly on the soon-to-be open-source MS document format.

GAV - if you do not want to care about share libraries, then next time a vulnerability is found in one of the critical components, you will have to go and DONWLOAD A NEW VERSION OF EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF SOFTWARE that uses that component.
If you don't do that, you will be open to attacks. Your computer may be overrun and used to send spam or harvest mails or compute ballistic trajectories for WWIII.

So you being a responsible user, will try to do your best to get new versions of all the software that was affected. Now, some of those software you have to update will NOT HAVE a newer version YET because its developer is lazy. Or drunk. Or dead. Or something. Others will be commercial and do not give a damn for you, just their profits. What will you do?

Do you really want everything to be statically built now?

Thanks for this review, Asa. I have tried to find good pro and con Linux articles, but they have always been technical jargon to me. Your article is exactly what I needed. I am a pretty sophisticated computer applications user, but not technical enough to figure out new OS's reading technical documents on my own. I don't know what "mounting a drive" is, and don't want to know. I have no idea what library files are for Linux that you apparently need to install application; I want my software downloads to just download, install and work, so I can mess with the software application instead of the OS.

I fully agree with ASA but there is, I believe also another reason. Behind an OS there are applications. I am an application developper. I use Linux 24/7 but I also run vMware and W2K in it. I know that what I develop on W2K will run for my clients from W98 to W2003.

Apple did several fantastic machines but failed to deliver simple to use development environment so typical Mac users are Graphics designors in the main. Not really mainstream.

Developping on Linux is not that hard, except that you have to spend a hell of a lot of time to make your own environment. To me, small software house, time is money I do not have a massive R&D budget. And then I'll have to worry about setting up my client's Linux desktop with all the right librairies, making sure I do not destabilise what they've got.

On Linux I cannot fireup my favorite Delphi (I am yet to find a development environement as afficient as Delphi or even (arrrgh) VB) , spend a few hours or days to put together that much needed application my customer wants, and email an EXE at the end of it. (probably with some SQL script provided he's got the database already installed). I cannot, or at least I have not found how.

If we want the Linux on the desktop to take off, we need to have tools for the millions of developpers out there, even if they have to pay for a product, or for the support and training of it or ... whatever the licencing will be available.

mclaren is one of the best trolls i've ever seen. or one of the best morons.

asa: you can't start from a clone of UNIX and suddenly want to conquer all desktops. we must do it by enlarging our geek niche to our next fellows. we must do it slowly and seamlessly NOW, not waiting to have "linuxOSX", because by that time we will be dead.

all your "we need a breakthough now" stuff is just science fiction. we must use a rational approach. I estimate we have 10% of users ready. now. let's conquer them NOW,because WE CAN DO IT NOW. they will help pave the way to the other. it would lead wide commercial application support, for example. a 10% of desktops would immediately convince Adobe to port its things on Linux, I think. and hardware producers would take it much more seriously.

Excellent, every time I have mentioned these issues it was considered a declaration of war. The bottom line here is that computers are/were meant to make life easier, your not supposed to have a degree in computer science in order to be able to use it. One of the things I also find annoying is that, under Windows, I run setup.exe and it installs the software I want with minimum hassle. I cant do the same under Linux, I generally have to hunt around and get the correct versions of libraries - I have 25 years in the computer industry, my granny (which should always be considerd as the Regular User) doesnt.

Well your point are valid, but there is one thing to consider, Firefox, Thunderbird, and mozilla on the linux platform suffer most of the problem you noted.
They are a world apart from the main DEs (kde and even gnome) they aren't able to communicate even between themselves, so maybe you too should do a step forward and start to support the increasing number of tecnologies avaiable for the linux desktop (most of them proposed by freedesktop.org) like dbus for example, don't talk, you raised a well known problem, please act, mozilla software is a good part of most modern linux desktops, please help this desktop to improve too.

Open source software on Windows is probably the way to go now, for a lot of non-geek people. It provides a transitional path to a complete free system: it will reduce the educational and migration costs. We have to fullfil a parallel effort: open source software on Windows (to pave the way) and Linux polishing (to have the great target).

Linux Market Share Debate — Why it’s Irrelevent

I have read numerous articles spanning many sites, blogs, eZines, etc., all telling the Linux developer community what to do to get more people to use Linux. What to do to “grab the desktop market”, what to do to get “Regular Users” to make the switch. And I’ve noticed several opposing schools of thought.

1. Make Linux function like windows so more windows users will make the switch.
2. Make a few improvements to some core ideals, but not necessarily make them windowsy.
3. Make the entire universe learn the ways of Linux.
4. Keep “Regular Users” as far away from Linux as possible.

Sadly there is quite a bit of flaming on the forums and blogs that choose to talk about this topic, and I think this is due to people not understanding under what school of thought a given post was made, or from posting without understanding what your school of thought poses for the Linux community in general.

I consider myself outside this debate, as I don’t really care if Linux is used by billions or by hundreds, but I would like to comment on a few things.

I don’t believe that the Linux Operating System will ever be on the majority of desk tops. There is a certain psychology to the Linux user that most people do not posess. And trying to modify Linux to fit another is well within the realm of a distribution, but not the Linux community in general. That having been said, here are some ideas on each school of thought as it applies to gaining market share.

The first school of thought, make it like windows, is flawed from the perspective of Hardcore Linux users that like their abstracted and elegant file systems, that like writing their own scripts to automount drives, that enjoy making complicated partitioning schemes, that are in general, Geeks. These guys and gals don’t want anything to function like windows. This is why they chose Linux as an operating system in the first place, and they have a point.

These sublime geeks also make a valid point when they say, “If you like windows, why would you switch from windows to something that acts like windows, but is not windows?” Sure some would, but many wouldn’t, so why bother making Linux more “Windows friendly.”

If you are trying to gain desk top market share, there might be a point to it. It would be a free atlternative to windows, that might be more stable. That in and of itself would be worth it. What a lot of the forum flamers don’t seem to realize is that Linux in general is not hurt by having distributions out there that try to emulate the windows experience.

Far from it, the users that do migrate to these systems usually do one of three things, none of which hurt the hardcore Linux-Geek. They see that Linux holds some great possibilities and they migrate to some of the more Unix-y distros where they either wash out after a few weeks or days or stick around and learn something. Or they like the Windowsy distro, say Lindows, and they stick with it, in which case they probably won’t be in any arena to piss off the hardcore Linux-Geek. Or they go back to windows. No lasting harm done at all.

The second school of thought, involving making improvements to some parts of the Linux experience in order to seduce potential Linux users to make the switch, has several points, but Package Management seems to be their central theme. And it’s a damn good one. But…

What this school of thought doesn’t seem to understand is that true, universal package management, across all distros, would require several key shifts in the way that Linux software is developed.

Code re-use is a prime consideration when developing linux software. When you install Linux, you get all these libraries sitting around that your applications make use of. Considerate developers re-use code from libraries that are stable and likely to already reside on a given user’s system. It seems like quite a few developers would rather link to the latest nightly of the newest version of the badassest library available.

Both approaches have their merits. The considerate approach will probably produce very stable software that almost any distribution can install and run. The other approach produces software that is bleeding edge, introduces new features, and takes advantage of advanced functions. The considerate approach sacrifices speed, new features etc, for wide availability, while the second approach sacrifices wide availability for new features, speed, and very probably more bugs.

All of this is ok if you stick with one or the other. Use the unstable branch or the stable branch of a distribution and don’t install software that conflicts with these libraries, and you’re set. However, if your trying to get windows users to migrate, this is in total conflict with how they are expecting to be able to install software. And it is not likely to change

To change this, Linux developers would have to rethink the current model of code re-sue and include all sorts of libraries with the packages they put together, which sounds alright at the outset, but the consequences of such behavior negate the good things about the code re-use philosophy. Namely we’d have bloated code, and more disk space being taken up by the same libraries, or different versions of the same library, being installed over and over again every time you installed an application.

And in fact this is exactly what does happen when you install a new package that requires a different version of the same library that already exists on your system. Which is why it’s best to choose a stable distro or an unstable distro and stick with it. Or, best case scenario, choose a distro that allows you to seperate stable from unstable packages in the package manager and you may use them both. Of course you’ll have two or more versions of all the libraries on your system, but at least they will be organized.

The point made by the people looking to increase the Linux user base is that no one should have to think about any of that crap I just said. As a long time Linux user, I’m used to it…But, there are days when I don’t want to fuck with it either; I just want to install some damn software and not think about it. I realize however, that this is not something that is likely to change in the near future, or any future. And in terms of getting as many new Linux users as possible migrating from their old operating systems, this is all bad. But like it or not, it’s the way Linux is built. A migrating user that loves the benifits that running Linux has, will eventually learn to conquer these things, and for people who don’t want to think about it — there is windows. Linux is supposed to be about choice. Windows is a choice.

There are third party (partial)solutions to the package management problem, like Autopackage and Klik, and the concepts are wonderful. The caveat is… in order to achieve the sort of interoperability between new and old that Regular User is looking for, everyone developing Linux software would have to make use of these technologies. And therein lies another problem technologies, plural…no one, single system of package management that all developers and distros adhere to.

The net result of all of this is the occasional screwed dependancy problem for a veteran Linux user and total chaos with a new user who is likely to try to install any package they want without knowing the possible pitfalls.

The third school of thought, that all users in the universe should Learn, Live and Love Linux hardly merits comment, except to say that it won’t happen; Regular Users do not want to think about certain things. Whether that be to their overall detriment or not, doesn’t matter. Some people just want to go to a restaraunt and order a burger, they don’t want to butcher the cow and grind the meat, or have to think about it.

The fourth school of thought, that Regular Users should stay far, far away from Linux, tends to produce the most flame on the boards. And this irritates me to no end. For this school of thought, arguing about how to get more users over to Linux is a moot point, they don’t want Regular Users, they want Savvy Users. And I have no problem with that. I think the same way myself. I don’t mind newbies. I was a newbie once. I like to help anyone that wants it. But it chaps my ass when people from this school of thought flame the boards. They act as if having Regular Joe User is going to corrupt the whole Linux experience. They shouldn’t even be participating in the debate. They have nothing pertinent to add to a debate about what Linux needs to do to get Joe Sixpack to make the switch.

And it doesn’t matter if Joe Sixpack does make the switch. He will either stay and learn, or leave, no harm done.

Personally, I think Linux as a whole is not meant for the Regular User. It was not meant to gain “Desk Top Market Share”, but I have no problem with distributions that try to achieve just that. They are distributions. They aren’t the whole of Linux. As long as there is a Linux kernel available for download, it doesn’t matter that Xandros or Lindows or whoever is trying to attract less savvy users to the Linux market. As long as there is downloadable source — The Geek Shall Thrive.

Ubuntu is definately the contender here. The current stable Hoary Hedgehog release is perhaps something equivalent to Firefox (or Firebird as it was) back at v0.6. Mark Shuttleworth seems to have put together a team which has the magic mix required to bring Ubuntu to normal humans.

The migration comment sparked an idea.

How about an engine that can mount any available Windows partitions and scan registries and config files and import them?

For example, install Linux dual-boot with Windows. Boot up Linux, run the engine to import IE's favorite places (or have it autorun).

Perhaps the engine could even keep preferences in sync. First thing's first though: it should just work.

The engine should be distro- and and application- agnostic. In other words I should be able to just write an .xml file or a script for application A on distro B. I should be able to import AIM settings into GAIM with the installation of an import rules package for Ubuntu. I should be able to import applicable Microsoft Office settings into Open Office with the installation of an import rules package for RedHat.

Ideally Ubuntu or RedHat or whatever distro would come with rules packages for all of their apps.

It wouldn't have to mount Windows partitions, it could also mount network drives (SMB) or whatever.

The goal is to install any flavor of Linux, boot up, and have your wallpaper, favorite places, office settings, old mail, event sounds, instant messenger icons, music player skins, and any other preferences copied and ready to go.

CD

Ever lied? You're a liar. Ever stolen? You're a thief. Ever hated? The bible equates hate with murder. Ever lusted? Jesus equated lust with
adultery. You've broken God's law.

He'll judge all evil and you're without hope -- unless you have a savior. Repent and believe.

here. here.

i would say installing stuff in linux is a big obstacle. certainly puts me off developing apps for linux

You make some valid points. I am essentially "Regular People", although most of my friends are major geeks. As a consequence, I have plenty of good Windows advice at my fingertips. Most of them don't use Linux, however, so it has been a bit of a challenge for me. But the wealth of information on the 'net, along with a couple of beginner's books, has allowed me to start the migration. I currently have one Windows box (my wife's), one Linux box, and a laptop that I will be converting to Linux soon. I am running Fedora Core 3 with Gnome on my Linux box, and I've gotten it set up pretty well at this point. One of the things that attracted me to Linux was the ability to customize the build for optimal performance and personal preference. This requires that I learn, and I'm trying to. I think it would benefit us "Regular People" to do that, so as to be able to take advantage of what Linux has to offer. Better entry-level texts on the subject, ones that assume essentially no useful knowledge on the part of the reader, would help. But the community needs to embrace the philosphy of "one destination, many paths". There needs to be Windows-like Linux distros to give "Regular People" a chance to experience Linux, so that they might eventually become "Novices", there needs to be "Novice" distros to help those users become "Geeks", and there needs to be "Geek" distros for the hardcore. Why? Because Linux has the potential to be a more cost-effective, more secure, more powerful and more free (as in speech) OS than Windows, something that would benefit just about everyone. And isn't that why it was created in the first place?

It must be understood, that discussion about directions Linux development could take is only to its benefit. There is no point to see such text as destructive for Linux. Analogy with Firefox is very interesting one, showing that there is will, potential and readiness to switch from Microsoft solutions. As is question why Linux didn't make it yet, being active player for quite long now. Of course, Microsoft has its way of behaving with target market, which was often disgusting to the benefit of alternatives left.

Still Microsoft has not gained spread for its products without good there is in them, therefore learning there does make sense, even if primitive copying would not. Just a week ago I spent time rethinking those critical OS/2 Warp and W95 differences, and with all regard to OS/2 solidness, found MS worth winning that desktop battle. It early shown this productivity of MS style: encapsulate complex things into simple (for profi even sacrificing exposure to details) - think 'add printer', and ensure it more often works, than not. Of course, now they have leveraged manufacturers to be on their side for the obvious reasons - and Open Source community is much weaker here.

Still, progress is happening and checking something like SuSE/Novell distro one could find very commercially prepared bundles that can be just unpacked and deployed. This is what is needed where computers are counted with trailing zeros, and where real savings, real changes could happen (home user often has free Windows, anyway). Yep, having road from Windows world paved could help, too. Compatibility with users over there (like for the sake of received .DOC, .XLS, .PPT, etc) is also critical. With all the best wishes there are for Open Source, even educated, but not isolated, folks still are dual booting. Welcome criticism, and make more changes happen.

Sadly you shose Fedora, an extremely experimental distribution of Linux. It was a little odd of you to choose this distribution, as opposed to a desktop focussed distribution like Ubuntu or Mepis. The Fedora home page explains this quite well:

"The Fedora Project is a Red Hat sponsored and community-supported open source project. It is not a supported product of Red Hat, Inc. The goal? Work with the Linux community to build a complete, general purpose operating system exclusively from free software. Public forum. Open processes. A proving ground for new technology that may eventually make its way into Red Hat products."

(from http://www.redhat.com/fedora/)

Note "General Purpose" operating system and "Proving ground". You have just entered the 'proving ground' that no new user should have to go enter.

I know many folk that wouldn't know what a tarball is yet have been using Linux happily in their offices or homes for a few years - these are point-and-click OS's, Mepis especially.

When I talk about ease, I talk about features like this:

http://klik.atekon.de/

I used Linux for 5 years and now I am back on Windows. It is amazing to me how Linux defendants claim/blame the users for not learning how to use Linux. Let's face it. Linux is still a toy. There are only about six USEFUL applications that actually work too. The rest is a bunch of shit. While those USEFUL applications have "moved-on" to Windows platforms, Linux just sits there, criticising users for being "too dumb" to use Linux. Who's the real group of idiots here?

I must say I agree with the author here, at least on a fair number of issues.
But I also think it is more or less impossible for my mom and dad to make a switch to Linux, ever. They have never had anything but Windows, and it works just fine for their surfing and email (Yes, I have installed FireFox and Thunderbird for them). They both use either Lotus Notes or MS Office in their Office, and imho, OpenOffice is not yet a 100% perfect replacement, at least not on a windows platform. (I hear many are happy with this application suite, but I always have different problems with it!)

Their new computers come shipped with Windows, with everything they need on it. No need to choose desktop-software, everything looks the same as in their office, which is the same way things have looked (more or less) for the past years. They were actually quite put off by the "new and improved Windows XP start menu" so I had to switch to the old menu-model for them..Thats how much they are into changes, if you know what I mean...

Mom and dad are simply the wrong generation for Linux in many ways, they learnt using computers because they had to, not because they wanted to or enjoyed it.
They wont as little change as possible, and have absolutely no intrest in learning how to handle or work in any other environment.

My generation (I'm 30 btw) is a lot more open-minded when it comes to something like swapping OS. Lord knows, I have had my attempts at a few Linux desktops over the years, even tried OS2 "some" years back. I use various Linux versions on my servers....but guess what dektop version I am still on...
Windows 2000. Thats right.

I am no stranger to the ports system, or other package-systems, but I do not have the time to switch OS just to "try" a new version of GNOME or whatever. It is way too much hassle. 3 or 4 years down the road, I am guessing I will be on Linux desktop, as I have a firm belief it will improve in the same direction it has been for the past years, and in the direction propsed by the author here. Thinking otherwise is not logical. Yet I strongly suggest my own little something to those who are determined to challenge Microsoft at their home grounds:

Try to speak with 1 voice, fronting 1 clear alternative / replacement.
Right now, its MS WINDOWS vs a number of smaller alternatives with different linux versions, different desktops, different setups and settings and options etc etc. These smaller competitors have much less chance of doing well against MS than if they had ganged up and gone 1 on 1, and let time work in their favour, with several 1-on-1 tests showing WHY people should switch, showing WHY Dell should ship their computers with that OS, and why a free OS may be better than something that costs money.
On a side note, my dad is the kind of person who would say "There is no such thing as a free lunch" and wouldnt trust a "free OS made by hackers" (; over a properly expensive system with a brand he knows....

Stupid article, Asa. In your opinion, "Linux will be ready for the desktop" exactly when it acts, looks and feels completely like Windows. Including "what you see is all you get", no choice for the end user, everything is absolutely easy, catching malware included. Windows by another name. Who needs that?

What are you talking here anyways? Who said Linux developers have to target some "market"? They don't. They don't need to. You don't like Linux the way it develops? Easy, fix it yourself. Oh, too hard for you? Then pay someone to do it for you. Oh, too expensive? Well, tough luck. And in the meantime, while you're doing nothing, just use what works for you (use Windows, nobody cares) and STFU.

First time have I seen such a bold and convincing article against Linux. I have tried many distros including - Fedora Core 3, Mandriva LE 2005 10.2, SuSe 9.2, Knoppix,..

There has been a problem with all of them.
Eg:

Fedora Core 3 just kicks mp3 support off for some copyright bullshit, you cannot mount NTFS partitions without a patch.

Mandriva loves to lose the drivers frequently and the Xorg.conf file just fails anytime it wishes, and Ark does not want to even read RAR files, you've gotta download winRAR command-line version which is just so pathetic.

SUSE has got the most things right although, no denying the fact. But then again I had problems running XviD videos on it. And let me tell you OpenOffice really sucks.. takes a lifetime to load, compared to Koffice or Ms-Office.

I am not complaining about Linux's structure, but these minor glitches need to be sorted out before one can completely migrate to Linux. When you look for an OS, the last thing you want is headaches. My WindowsXP installation has been working effortlessly for 2 years, i have never seen the "Blue Screen Of Death", never had problems I couldn't sort out myself, never had the insecurity that - "oh! will my os start.. oh god please don't give me an error message" thing.. but I still keep giving linux a chance and have not formatted the ext3 partition even today. I have SUSE 9.2 installed, but i would have preffered to have it installed on a Virtual Machine like VMware..

If you can tell me which distro i can use without hassles.. please do email me..

Thanks..

Akhil

The simple truth is that most folks rarely care about much of this stuff. Regular folks want to be able to buy software and not have to worry if it runs on their OS. They want to know that their digital camera will connect with their OS and easily transfer pictures. They want to know that their printer will install easily and work. In short, they want their OS to function properly and easily. Windows is not perfect. But Windows is the best at accomplishing all these feats. Mac is getting better. But Linux is a joke. I use linux at home for a web server. Works great as a web server. As a consumer desktop? Please. That's a pipe dream. Until all these "distros" act in concert and present Linux in one marketing package as a single entity (like Apple did with BSD) then the fact is that the majority of regular folks will continue to never have heard of Linux. And even if Linux could do what Apple has done then they would have to give the average joe a compelling reason for abandoning Windows. Those that hate Microsoft can think of plenty of reasons, but the average joe just don't care about many of them.

Why the hell should I know what "My Computer" is? I wan't to save my documents into my homedir, and not just somewhere onto "My Computer" -- actually I'd expect there to find some things like what kind of CPU I have... And what is that drive "C:" supposed to be? And why can't I mount my CD just somewhere? Why does it appear as some drive D: ??

See, the concepts in windows are just as alien.

I agree Lunchbox, on the UNIX platform, only Big Mac has been able to get things right, because they had the sense to "JOIN FORCES" with BSD, as a result.. Mac is more user-friendly than windows.. and well who knows they might conquer the pc OS market after their x86 release is ready..

I never wanted linux to be like Windows, and I never will, but the fact remains that you can get the job done in windows and sometimes not in linux..

One doesn't wish to install nVidia drivers in command-line mode, I mean come on quit the command-line now at least. Then you have to have the kernel source installed to do the job along with a shitload of libs, it crazy.. for a simple job you gotta dig your brains like hell.

Really all these guys should make one linux and get things right, end the compatibility problems..

as an extremely happy Debian(Kanotix)/KDE user who entirely switched less than a year ago, I really struggle to see what this is about.
Simplicity? Synaptic and its APT backend are even easier than the multi-step Windows installers, and both GNOME and KDE developers are already undergoing massive efforts to improve their GUI to make it "right".
Dual-booting/leaving Win untouched? Suse, Mandriva, Ubuntu, they all have easy installers who take extreme care in configuring a dual-boot system in a simple manner.
Comfort? Can I say bollocks? :) Even windows was hard when it came out...

The only good suggestion, I think, is about migrating settings. Yes, the installers should make sure they can read and export all the Win settings that matter. The task is made extremely difficult by MS reluctance to open NTFS, so that open-source drivers are not 100% safe.

I pity the guy above who can't connect to a digital camera. When my gf came around, we plugged her Canon A80 in my HP laptop USB, fired Digikam, and that was it. Same happened with an external DVD-RW: bought it (without even looking up if it was linux-safe!), plugged in, fired K3B, done. Webcam? plugged in, done. On Windows I had to install the drivers, the programs to use them, etc etc. The only real problem was a winmodem, and it's hardly the developers' fault if the Windows world is full of similar hacks because vendors can't be bothered to produce decent stuff and people can't spot the difference because "windows is unstable anyway". Same with 3D graphic cards, it's the vendors' fault, how do you propose to persuade THEM, not the users?

And anyway:
1) you are comparing apple (a browser who almost never uses the hardware it runs on) to oranges (several desktop environments running on a multitude of different kernels/architectures with gazillions of different hardware devices).
2) your attitude is becoming worse and worse. I'm kind of relieved that FF is becoming "old news" and slowing its growth, otherwise you would feel compelled to lecture us that "our experience with Firefox in fighting IE supporters taught us... hence the CIA to fight terrorists should..." ;)

Please go back to make FF at least bearable. Last time I checked, Opera was kicking your collective arse quite badly for speed and ease of use, and they do email+rss better than anyone else, they even do bittorrent now. And it runs on mobile phones too, while "minimo" is, well, let's not go there. Maybe you should outsource FF development to Norway...

cheers

The second problem that blocks massive Linux Desktop growth is stability. I don't mean the not crashing kind of stability, I'm talking about a stable API that doesn't require the user jump through hoops when they want to download a new application from download.com. A user should be able to install Fedora Core 4 and go grab the latest Firefox release from Download.com and have it work without the need for finding and installing compat-libstdc++ or whatever.

---
Well... FC4 and this portion of your analysis has 3 issues...
a. it's redhat
b. it's bleeding edge
c. mozilla comes preinstalled with redhat. redhat's latest package covers firefox 1.0.4. It can be had by simply running up2date. No libstdc++ issues whatsoever.

Users often "overthink" things and make life harder for themselves than it really needs to be. Downloading the latest and greatest everything is one example of something a user shouldn't do if they are looking for stability.

If you want stability, I'd try SuSE or Debian. Download anything that didn't come out a week ago. Try FC3, then running up2date. I am sure your experience will be hella smoother. I know because I am writing this from an FC3 workstation using:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050513 Fedora/1.0.4-1.3.1 Firefox/1.0.4

current release of firefox is 1.0.5. I built this machine 2 days ago. Not bad. According to the download directory for Firefox 1.0.5, the date on this file is 2 days ago. You gotta give them credit. They are not far behind.

And I did nothing more than install off of the disks and run up2date. It was extremely simple. No install errors, and at the time I installed fc3, they had the latest firefox. In fact, it was probably the simplest install of any OS I have experienced.

Now, what's easier, this or dealing with a spyware infested windows machine?

Everyone I know that has a home windows machine, has tons of spyware and/or viruses. Their personal information is at risk, and their machines are spamming the internet whenever they turn them on. MS Windows is a nuisance, to it's own users and the internet.

This doesn't make for a stable machine ; )

my 2 cents...

-Neil

Apparently you've never heard of, or tried, Xandros or Linspire. Hard-core Linux users slam these two distros for being "dumbed down" but they are in every way good enough for the average users' desktop. Both feature very slick utilities for downloading and installing software (they are both fancy front ends for apt-get) from a central repository which is searchable by name and category. No dependency issues, no guesswork. Both distros are also strong where the Linux desktop is typically weak, namely multimedia.

That's kinda funny, because I've always felt like Windows wasn't ready for the desktop...

Ever see your mother completely freak out at BSOD and start crying?!? Or one of my customers think everthing concerning her main software app was deleted because someone accidentally deleted the shortcut? Or how about my X's younger brother who install applications directly onto the the desktop??

It comes down to two things really: Education and the willingness to learn. I am sure the first time you sat down in front of Windows you didn't know what you were doing either. Matter of fact, I'll bet you learned Windows because you had it at work, and THEY probably made you site through a basic class to do so.

Ubuntu has been an incredible experience for the people that I've shown it too. I have it running right next to Windows as well and can get at all my M$ data without a problem, (but I rarely need to since I use linux 98% of the time). If I run windows, I can't get at my linux data since its on ReiserFS partitions. I'd probably have to go download some sort of shareware thing to do that.

Anyway, I've rambled long enough about this, and am just beating a dead horse. Some folks just don't have the willingness to learn and no linux movement will *ever* change that...people don't like change. For linux to take off, you need to start 'em early and educate, educate, educate...

Well the only thing I can add is it is time for the hardware vendors to step up. If Linux does not make the Best Buy printer work or the Circuit City scanner then there is no hope. Would you want a OS that can not print your digital pics on your Canon printer?

Until we have drivers we have nothing.............

Don't blam the OS they can not do it all..........

I believe that one should use the best tool for the job. If you are looking for serious enterprise operating systems for hosting or storing data then un*x variants are probably the best solution (and even then one could argue linux vs BSD-family). If you are looking for scientific simulations within a research community then once again linux or BSD-family OS's are the best choice. However if one is looking to please the "common" audience - which by the way happens to be the vast majority of computer users - then one should pick Microsoft Windows. It comes with everything the average John/Jane Doe needs. Nothing more nothing less.

I say OS companies should truly admit to themselves first and foremost who their niche audience is and optimize their systems accordingly instead of spending millions and millions on R&D to make a weather-simulation OS into a desktop app only for Granny to search for recipes online or place a decent average user OS into a weather-simulation situation just to be recognized as the ultimate all-in-one solution. Stick to what you're good at.

Michael.

ps. I have omitted commenting on the Mac - I have only been using un*x variants and Microsoft Windows - hence cannot give a personal opinion about Macs.

Some people want to think and configure, others want the OS to take care of everything for them. I like having the ability to customize my OS to just exactly what I want. I realize that this is not for everyone and it is ok with me.

I realize that your points above are probably accurate in what it would take to adopt the average user. However, if Linux made these changes, I would be looking for another OS.

I agree with almost all the points, except for the application install.
For distros that I've used, only the RPM based ones are the ones that have caused me headache (heck they may have given me the gift of migraines). I've used Debian, Gentoo, and even FreeBSD (I know it's not Linux but bear with me). One thing in common between these OSes is that there's no concern for hunting the right library when installing the software. You go apt-get firefox or emerge -a firefox or pkg_add -r firefox, and off it goes and does its work. It only craps up if your internet connection is broken (or you're using an unstable version, but you're just Regular User...)
I can see the problem when some of these Regular Users becomes Linux Users, and then they start to look at choices. If we did implement measures to make the choices for the user, how can we let those who want to choose do so in the very same distro?
If the distro picked Gnome as the desktop environment, how can the Linux User who may want Xfce and the Regular User who don't really care what Gnome is coexists on the same distro?

Asa,

Excellent!!!

Microsoft=Desktop
Linux=Server

Thats the way I do it!

Peace.

Nail, Head, Hammer...Connect!

In replay to pmacfar statement

"In general, I agree with your points. I don't think the migrating is as important, except for easily transferring documents. After all, when you get a new Windows computer, it doesn't automatically transfer settings and preferences for you, either."

I never used it but is this not what the standard XP "Files and Settings Transfer Wizard" is for?

" is it firefox? apt-get mozilla firefox or emerge -av mozilla firefox "

How can people read the F original post and still add comments like this? I think the Linux community is not ready for prime time either...

" Windows is an uncomfortable situation for me. "

Well C++ programmers are very unconfortable in VB and VB programmers just can't get a grasp of C++. Guess how many VB programmers vs. how many C++ programmers are there.

Whatever...
I don't care about making Linux the popular OS to replace M$ or Apple. I KNOW that Linux is ready and does everything that I need it to do.
I'm tired of the useless arguements about what OS is better. The important thing is that we are free to choose. Please don't let the rich commercial software companies lock out GPL or the free software.
I am an MCSE (Microsoft) and also an Apple administrator but for the last five years I only need to use Linux to perform all my duties plus save money. I personally will probably never have to pay for another commercial OS or software package although I donate time or funds to Open Source Projects that I use.

Microstoft users worked hard to learn how to use Windows. Sometimes we forget that there was a learning curve with the OS we are now most comfortable. Now Linux should be Windows compatible to make your life easier? Like "I know how to ride a bike, why can't they make a car work like a bicycle? Wah!"

Life is usually not fair, get over it.
I got mine (Linux)...you get yours (Windows compatible), but leave mine alone.

I almost hate to say it, but yes, your absolutely right about Linux. I too have been using Linux lately. Windows for a decade, and OS X for 3 years. And I think that the the bulk of Windows users won't switch, because for all the reasons you list, but also because most folks are too lazy to bother with it.And personally I'm glad. As an IT industry worker I've become comfortable with that fact. Not only for my bread and butter, but also because Linux really isn't for the masses. No way. Remember Linux grow out of one persons desire to design a newer Unix version, ala Minix, for singular reasons. And I grow weary of people trying to place Linux somewhere were it doesn't belong!The heck with the 'masses'. The old adage still applies here, Linux was made by geeks, for geeks.And as good as it has become,this still applies.
That said, I'm torn when I see nice serious people like you tackling a topic like this, my hats off to you for trying, but you really should remember something, we all don't drive the same car,watch the same TV shows, eat the foods etc:
And yes, I might sound arrogant...

Stephen

I response to Anders and those who think as he does. Seriously, let me introduce myself briefly.

me:
currently: System admin for an Elementary school in a school district in Florida for 2 years.

Previously:
System admin for a highschool in another school district in Florida for 5 years

Independant network security and systems consultant in Miami for 8 years

MCSE
CCNS
MCSD
A+
MCSA

All this means, is that I am extremely comfy with Win. Now onto my point:

At home I use a SuSe box as my email/file server. I love it to pieces, i really do. It took me all of 4 years to really feel comfortable with linux, but alot of that had to do with my ability as a techie type person to know where to go to find the information I needed to become familiar with Linux. In my most humble of opinions, Asa is right on the money with his blog. Even in a windows environment a normal user cannot perform simple maintenance and/or security tasks. This isn't because they are stupid. Saying it is because they are dumb users is disrespecting them and revealing just how low of an IQ you must possess. How many of you know how to do body work on a car? Or maybe drop a transmission and change out a clutch?

Let me go another route. How many of you know how to reconcile a corporate account and depreciate the value of all the company's assets over a space of 30 years? Maybe just do book keeping and keep up to date with accounting laws and tax laws? How many of you know how to put together a legal brief for a case in court? The users who use Windows do these other things. To them, learning a new operating system and being bogged down with a command line instead of point and clicking is just a waste of time. They do not want to learn a new OS, they do not want to retrain that muscel memory. They want to get on the machine and create a word document and send it using email. They know where everything is on a windows machine and like that.

Windows is not hard to learn to use, to administer and maintain is another story but to use a monkey with one arm can learn it. I literally sat my mother down in front of her first computer (a dell laptop) and told her three things.

1) read
2) don't delete anything
3) click everything

I set it up for her of course. I configured her broadband connection, her proxy, and her email client. Keep in mind she is a 57 year old Cuban woman who speaks good english but is old school. In the space of 1 month she was able to write word documents, do excel spreadsheets (with the aide of a book i bought her to teach her how to do formulas and linkages in excel) She also was also now very knowledgeable of how to get things done using WinXP Pro. She knew what I meant when