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175 Comments
- Steeple, on 12/04/2008, -15/+57unless the scene has changed in the last couple of years, a n00b asking questions in a linux forum isn't going to learn anything about his install, but PLENTY about linux users!
- JohnFlux, on 12/04/2008, -3/+34I don't get why people say this sort of thing.
I went to ubuntu forumns, clicked on the first dozens help requests, and every single question was dealt with politely and professionally:
http://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=331
Likewise I'm always in #ubuntu on irc, and thousands of questions are answered every day. I just searched my irc log for 'rtfm' and found nothing (log goes back a few days). - inactive, on 12/04/2008, -7/+36The biggest problem linux has is over eager evangelicals. I would have had a much more pleasant experience with linux on the desktop if people were honest with me about the disadvantages as well as the advantages. "Get Ubuntu" they said "it just works" they said. ***** why doesn't my wireless work "oh its because atheros uses proprietary drivers, its their fault not Ubuntu's". Okay why can't I print, why is my scanner almost impossible to use. It doesn't just work, you have to make it work. Linux fanboys should be honest about the amount of elbow grease a first timer should expect to put into making his or her system work.
- Thoku, on 12/03/2008, -3/+31Someone who actually understands what Linux is. A distro may tailor itself to be more user friendly but it will always be built on top of a very technologically lead development system.
- NixiePixel, on 12/04/2008, -7/+23Linux doesn't have to, nor should it change its approach. The problem is not with Linux, it is with lack of education for these new users. That can be managed in other ways rather than changing Linux distributions to be more like Windows.
- booksnmore4you, on 12/04/2008, -9/+25I enjoy various Linux distors.
Now let me say that, regrettably, Linux will always be marginal to the degree one must be a Geek, because most people who rely on computers are not Geeks and don't want to be. It's that simple. - Chris_F, on 12/04/2008, -3/+18God, based off of the people I've worked with I wouldn't be surprised the least bit. I consistently have people who think that a "PC" isn't the same as a "Desktop" or that a "Notebook" is something completely different from a "Laptop". That's if they still aren't referring to the damn thing as a CPU or better yet the "Hard Drive".
You cant say all MS users, but it's safe to say that the majority of people don't, and it just so happens that the majority of people use Windows. That means the majority of MS users don't. - rusty0101, on 12/04/2008, -2/+17I'm not really going out on a limb here. I know linux users who think that they have to convert every windows user to linux, or their life is not complete. I also know a lot of mac users who can't see why anyone would use anything other than a mac. And windows users who will never really have an interest in any other OS.
I'm personally OK with all three platforms, as well as several others. My own opinion is that if you have found something that works well for you, that's great. Use it. But realize that just because something works well for you, doesn't mean that the next person over, who may happen to be trying to do exactly the same thing as you do every day, will find that what you use will work the same way for them.
I use Linux every day, and windows mostly for work. What I am willing to put up with is something different from what you will. Such is the way of the world from my experience. Have fun. - 3ch0, on 12/04/2008, -15/+28This is beautiful. Linux is free, it doesn't matter what any company does. Linux will still be free. Free to grow like a old tree in the wood never bending for the wind.
But also free to move fast, change and adopt all that the users need. When Apple and Microsoft fail Linux will still be there. Safe, free and still evolving.
Lovely! - inactive, on 12/04/2008, -3/+15Wow I bet you're a *great* teacher.
- Psych77, on 12/04/2008, -9/+20According to the article, no MS user understands the difference between servers and desktops. *****.
- mickstephenson, on 12/04/2008, -0/+10@dannytatom - Sometimes the people reading the question don't know the answer, simple as that.
- mickstephenson, on 12/04/2008, -6/+15Not really, most people have Windows in their work place, and if it wasn't for work they'd have no preference. If more workplaces switch their desktops to linux, more home computers will switch in turn.
- goober1473, on 12/04/2008, -2/+11And it's not geeky to need to understand firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware apps for windows? D non-geeks understand what the difference between phishing, a virus, worms, phreaking, social engineering and whatever else there is?
Windows is just as bad once you scratch the surface. - a0peter, on 12/04/2008, -4/+13I agree wholeheartedly! Some chick tried teaching me German the other day, but I found out it involved books and studying, so I told her to beat it!
Stop spewing hate, if you don't wanna learn something new, it is not our fault. - theOster, on 12/04/2008, -1/+10computers (regardless of OS) have FAR surpassed the normal human capacity for organization and logic. humans aren't ready for computers.
- alexiadeath, on 12/04/2008, -1/+10Then don't switch. Linux is not for you... But you can still take a peek with LiveCD, if you want tho. That is the message of the article too, i believe...
- boogie606, on 12/04/2008, -0/+8I tend not to use the forums. I google my question and invariably, someone has asked the same question somewhere and iI get the info I need, from ubuntu forums or other tech sites.
- bandola, on 12/04/2008, -2/+10Good point. This is often the problem new Linux users face (me included), that drivers don't work properly because you have to fiddle with it yourself.
The n00bs REALLY need to be informed about this before they try Linux as an alternative to Windows. I know several people that are completely turned off about Linux after realizing that not everything is Plug-n-Play like they expected. - rhinofinger, on 12/04/2008, -6/+14I respectfully disagree with at least some of the article. Maybe linux wasn't made to compete with windows or osx, but that's what people are making it out to be these days, and tradition is not a valid reason to stay the course (civil rights movement anyone?). And that's the beauty of it - if you don't want to change, there are plenty of distros for the hardcore base that won't change from the way linux has always run. The reason ubuntu is so successful though is that it is not only increasing driver compatibility and automatically setting a lot of things up for you, but much of the interface is more centralized. Which is hardly a bad thing - less muddling around editing text files to change settings (which I hate. seems like linux would be impossible to use without google sometimes). Without this centralization, linux sometimes gets to feeling like a bunch of components made by various people hobbled together with duct tape so that they kind of work together. Which it kind of is. Go ahead, digg me down.
- MattBD, on 12/04/2008, -0/+8Most of the problems people have with Linux are a result of the fact that it doesn't come preinstalled. Who has had to edit their xorg.conf on an Eee PC to get something working on the default OS? No-one.
- alexiadeath, on 12/04/2008, -0/+8None taken :P
- Deamun, on 12/04/2008, -1/+9Honestly, I don't believe their braindead for not sitting around for extreme amounts of time learning (and you have to, that's why I say better GUI's would be nice). People have jobs and families and they go out after work, their tired and worn out and do not wish to absorb dry reading material for hours on end. Most of these people are trying it out for the first time because a relative told them it was super easy to use, just worked, and to pop in a liveCD.
If the interface was made friendlier they could do most of this stuff point and click. You would still get newbies, but helping them out wouldn't feel like you were trying to push a boulder up a mountain, and it would probably go much faster. Which would be nicer for both you and them. It would probably also reduce the calls from intelligent people who are trying it for the first time but have problems not from being stupid but from being innocently ignorant (which we all were at some point). - Deamun, on 12/04/2008, -4/+12The author is wrong. The problem is not with choice, it is how those choices are presented.
Article author appears to be addicted to using the command prompt, not that there is anything wrong with that, however saying that people who prefer having a robust GUI are attempting to destroy the OS is FUD. A problem with the command line is that it's not intuitive at all, the first time you look at it, you need to know commands from somewhere to type something in, if you don't know any it detracts pretty quickly from the overall value of the OS. Having a well laid out GUI that lets people do most of the command line stuff with a few mouse clicks in an intuitive manner isn't going to suddenly cause the collapse of the OS.
I believe that people are correct to make critical judgments about Linux and how choices are presented and how changes are made inside the OS. I personally find that setting everything up, pulling out broken stuff and replacing it, upgrading it, figuring out how to do everything, hunting down snippets of code to copy/paste into the command line to repair a default installation or just to get it functional takes about 8 solid hours if you include the time of waiting for downloads etc. This could be better than it is, more context menu's, more menu's period inside things and taking more stuff from the command prompt and creating a GUI front end to interact with it is a good thing not a bad thing. There is no reason why both the command prompt, as well as GUI overlays if you don't wish to use the command prompt, cannot co-exist as options peacefully. After all does it truly cause a dev community to go nuclear just because people don't always want to use a command prompt? I think the author wrote the article to be incendiary with an invalid point to increase traffic to his own website, this article is moot and in fact is advocating that new choices and easier ways to do things should be left out of the OS because it is new users asking for them and not power users, which just seems like stupidity and snobbyness. - 007isbond1, on 12/04/2008, -1/+9true comment. crap art.
no offense - alexiadeath, on 12/04/2008, -1/+8@mickstephensonmickstephenson: Sometimes people don't ask in a manner that lets the person qualified to help realize what was asked. Here's a free tip. Tell what you were trying to do and where you got stuck, not what you think you need.
- dannytatom, on 12/04/2008, -0/+7Admittedly questions are ignored sometimes in IRC, but I don't think it's on purpose. #ubuntu is a busy channel, there's a chance you might not get an answer your first time asking.
- ThePhotoBoy, on 12/04/2008, -4/+11BS I've tired installing Ubuntu just to see what the buzz is all about. F' that. I shouldn't have to use google and linux forums just to learn how to install a simple program.
- PsychoBrat, on 12/04/2008, -5/+12Alarmist article. For someone who purports to understand the driving forces behind Linux / the free desktop in general, he/she seems awfully scared about something that isn't really such a huge deal. Windows refugees that think "Linux should be more like Windows" will certainly have some influence on the direction of certain distributions... but that's it. Developers won't stop working on their important projects just because some people happen to prefer more "Windowsy" alternatives -- in fact, the author's emphasis on the importance of choice should lead him/her to the conclusion that it's not necessarily a bad thing to have a more Windows-like distribution or two around.
- RoboDonut, on 12/04/2008, -0/+7If everybody approached every situation with a willingness to learn, the world would be far less ignorant.
- Rockkybox, on 12/04/2008, -5/+11Why are you trying to be poetic about an operating system?
- Frostek, on 12/04/2008, -0/+6Excellent - We'll call it Operation "All our eggs in one basket"...
Nothing can go wrong... - javaroast, on 12/04/2008, -0/+6@FKnight until that doesn't work. Then they go to ....
1.) They can pay Apple or MS for support and invariably get pointed at Adobe...
2.) then they go to Adobe who points at the OS and
3.) Run circle into exhaustion.
If you are honestly trying to suggest that Apple and MS don't need support these 2 pages would seem to disagree:
http://support.microsoft.com/
http://www.apple.com/support/ - PhailQuail, on 12/04/2008, -1/+6Their current situation suggests that they -do- need it, and that they -do- have use for it.
- javaroast, on 12/04/2008, -0/+5@FKnight your familiarity with the tech support options of Microsoft and Adobe disproves your original inference.
Adobe does have paid support: http://www.adobe.com/support/programs/
Microsoft does charge http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?& ...
And if your OS was preinstalled they send you to the vendor
Obtain support from your computer manufacturer
Support for products installed on computers at time of purchase is provided by the computer manufacturer.
So in other words Adobe and Microsoft both offer extensive support options... because they need to. No shame in good support for your product, but don't try to pretend that Windows is so seamless that it needs no support. - Phocion55, on 12/04/2008, -0/+5I'm not entirely sure you can call the OS that runs the majority of the Internet and 90% of the world's most power supercomputers a "crappy ass system".
- inactive, on 12/04/2008, -1/+6The Windows Registry is one of its major points of failure. It's a stupid idea, poorly implemented.
- alexiadeath, on 12/04/2008, -1/+6Im pretty sure there's worse stuff out there:P
- JohnFlux, on 12/04/2008, -5/+10This is your irc conversation that I think you're referring to:
11:06 thedowd anyone here running compiz under KDE?
11:09 r0xz thedowd: not any more, you have problems?
11:10 thedowd r0xz: yeah, the window decorations are gone
11:11 thedowd r0xz: the title bars, etc
11:13 r0xz thedowd: sounds like a kwin problem
11:13 r0xz thedowd: there are some posts on the forum about it, i don't know the solution myself
etc. Not one of your questions was ignored. Do you really consider these people to be ***** for not being able to answer questions? - inactive, on 12/04/2008, -3/+8"Installing a program" in Ubuntu is EASIER than in Windows, and doesn't require a reboot! The instructions and manuals are simple to understand, if you can be bothered. If you're resistant to learning anything, then you can remain ignorant, under your rock.
- FKnight, on 12/04/2008, -5/+10@mickstephenson:
I don't think it's because they're used to what they have in the workplace that is causing people to use Windows at home. I think it's the fact that they want to run iTunes, World of Warcraft, Photoshop, their HP All In One Scanner/FAX Machine/Copier, and other things without a hassle.
This article talks a lot about how people want Linux to work like Windows and that's one of the causes of people having a problem with Linux ... yet whenever that is brought up, there is a clear misunderstanding of what "work like Windows" means.
People don't want Linux to work like Windows in that they want the icons, buttons, and menus the same. They want Linux to work like Windows in that they can actually get things done using software applications and hardware that is readily available on the shelf at Best Buy that they can install simply by putting the CD in or plugging the device in.
"People are used to WIndows at work, so that's why they use Windows at home" and "People just aren't aware of Linux" and similar things miss the entire point of why people use Windows and Mac OS, a point that Apple and Microsoft clearly have understood for close to three decades - people like computers that work out of the box, and they like to buy hardware and software, plug it in or insert the CD, and then .. basically, have to do nothing except get down to business with whatever work they need to do.
This is also why people buy AM/FM radios instead of radio receiver kits from Radio Shack. - smotpoker, on 12/04/2008, -1/+6"and tradition is not a valid reason to stay the course"
Until good/valid reasons to stray from traditions manifest, it certainly is.
Unix was one of the first general purpose OSes and it was the direct result of decades of research and testing. Later, people got together and took it into different directions creating new OSes and distros, picking the parts that made the most sense for their intended goals and modifying those that didn't. Those parts that persist throughout the *nix landscape represent the fundamentals that are essential for nearly any task and cannot be arbitrarily discarded without good cause and careful planning.
MS and Apple both attempted to do so and it provided them with the crap they sold for years. I don't know so much about Apple but Windows sounds and acts a lot more like the duct-taped travesty you described. OSX, Linux, BSD etc are built on a solid foundation that was established on hard data with the skills of trained professionals and research[ers] from some of the best ivy league schools. It has been honed, crafted and optimized by millions of the best and brightest for half a century.
Yourself and people like you want to buy into the MS rhetoric that they are cutting edge and we need to abandon the methods and mechanisms of yesterday but you are wrong. Building an OS without understanding of the fundamentals of OS design or the software you are working with is like trying to build a house with no foundation or coordination with the architect - only harder.
MS didn't develop Windows because they had better ideas or a better understanding of technology. Their goal has always been just to make money. They needed something that wasn't owned by someone else, took what they could get, polished it up the best they could so it would seem distinct/better, mislead people regarding it's true capabilities and sold it. There was nothing revolutionary about anything *they* did and their motives for diverging from traditional OS design were petty and misguided. Undoing the harm they have inflicted on the technological world will probably take another decade or so before either Windows gets yet more unix-like or people wise up and abandon it altogether. - zambuka, on 12/04/2008, -0/+5There is nothing wrong with choice, and nothing wrong with having a lot of choices. There is also nothing wrong with standardisation and developing a standardised base to encourage more commercial developers to develop for Linux distros. Choice and standardisation are not mutually exclusive in any way. There is also absolutely nothing wrong with making these choices easy without having to delve into the arcane inner workings of the operating system. That said, this guy comes across as rather hypocritical to start the article by harping on about the value of choice and then turn around and state in no uncertain terms what should not be happening with Linux.
The evangelical Linux hawker, the one who claims that Linux is the be all and end all solution to everyone's computer needs, is bad for the future of Linux and the various distros because they make claims that Linux can't live up to and so end up making Linux look bad. This guy however comes from the other end of the spectrum and in some ways is even more detrimental to the cause. You know the type, the Linux purist who insists that Windows and OSX have little to nothing to offer in the way of inspiration for future development. (you know, useless things, like easy to use GUI configuration tools, user friendly text editors and help files). These guys are bad for Linux because they tend to not only actively oppose the inclusion of Windows and OSX inspired tools into the distributions but they also actively oppose the addition of any original innovations that don't fit in with their personal views on how and what Linux is supposed to be. - smotpoker, on 12/04/2008, -3/+8I think most people who say this sort of thing are raging morons who want to be spoonfed each and every tidbit of info they will ever need. I have seen people get rude with new users a bunch of times but there are relatively few who do it and they usually get banned before too long.
Most of the time when it happens, someone asks a simple/routine question and rather than type out a long/drawn out explanation themselves, the helper will provide a URL that has the answer and any background info they might want/need. New user refuses to do much more than glance at it and insists on reading the answer from an IRC client rather than a web browser and only wants to know the exact amount of info he asks for.
When this occurs, helpers will insist the person RTFM and if they persist making a fuss they will get insulted etc. Unlike most tech support, FOSS support on IRC and forums aren't getting paid and won't take the same amount of ***** that someone who is getting paid would.
If new users are likely to have a dire emergency or be super impatient they should consider some sort of paid support options where the people helping them will have an incentive not to give them a piece of their mind if they are impatient/rude and consistently ignore relevant advice. - MattBD, on 12/04/2008, -0/+4Linux has definitely gained users in the last year, because of the netbook phenomenon. OK, some run Windows, but a pretty high proportion (depends where you hear it from but now I believe around 30%) are sold with Linux.
- Steeple, on 12/04/2008, -3/+7head spins!
what's linux's advantage?
"it's free!"
why can't i run it on my pc?
"you have a ***** you cheap-ass!" - bsmang, on 12/04/2008, -1/+5I disagree.. Maybe you found some forum full of ***** somewhere, and there's probably at least one on every forum, but that is not representative of the Linux community. They are usually very helpful to all who come asking. I know I am, and I found lots of others who were 10 years ago. Maybe things changed for the worse in the last couple of years and I didn't catch it, but not the other way around.
- bradleyland, on 12/04/2008, -0/+4Bless you.
- Tw3ek, on 12/04/2008, -0/+4My problem with asking why I should use Linux is I get responses like "It just works" or "Windows sucks, use [insert distro here]" . I've used Linux before, and I like being able to pretty much change whatever I want to suit my needs, but is the average user of a computer really going to need that, let alone know where to begin? If people really want Linux to start gaining a broader fanbase, then they should be more accepting of new users and help them, rather than offer snide comments and lame explanations, since most people I know usually have positive things to say about Linux after trying it.
- Steeple, on 12/04/2008, -2/+6i work with a perfectly clever guy who can't conceptualize the difference between ram and a hard drive,
"it's all memory isn't it?"
you can't assume that talking plain english to someone who didn't grow up talking it, is going to make you understood. -
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