"Over the years, I've had a number of people asking me what I believe the problem was with further migration over to Linux by the public at large. To be frank, I don't believe that there is a simple answer to this. To me, there are a number of factors that play a role in keeping Linux out of the mainstream limelight" writes Matt Hartley in his opinion piece.
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Member since:2006-01-02
You haven't used most of the advanved features of Photoshop have you? Gimp doesn't even come close. And also, Gimp is excesssively slow compared to Photoshop when dealing with production quality images.
So are we talking about the needs of average users or not? If so, then photoshop is far beyond what the average user needs. So is gimp probably. A professional graphic artist probably needs photoshop because it is the industry standard and they're probably trained in it. However, this does not have any relevance for the "average user". In any event, photoshop runs on crossover office.
[/i]And after I try to install that software that came with my new digital camera that makes it easier to work with photo collections and libraries, only to find out it only works with Windows...
Almost all digital cameras work out of the box, and the software available for managing image libraries is far superior to the crap that camera manufacturers ship with their products. Digikam is a prime example. A little anecdote: My sister-in-law came to stay, and had some photos of our kids on her camera that I wanted. I asked if I could copy them onto my computer. She said she didn't have the cd that came with it, so I couldn't. I said I'd give it a try, plugged it in, camera icon appeared on the desktop, and away I go. That's the ease of use of linux. Ease of use that windows users have never had, or can understand.
[i]And after I figure out that the reason I can't view quicktime videos is because I need mplayer and mplayer-plugin..
Show me how you watch quicktime videos on a default windows install?
Although with bugs, and lousy performance... Unless it is using the Sorensen 3 compression format... Now I am just completely out of luck
I don't know when you last used mplayer, but the performance is phenomenal on my machines, compared to windows on the same machine, cpu usage is minimal.
Oh... And of course, you mean it is suitable for viewing videos after I figure out that the reason I can't watch most DVDs is because I need to install a plugin to handle the encryption, which it is questionable whether I can legally even do in many countries... And even then, the chances of getting that plugin to work with many players installed by default on distros is virtually null. So time to look for a new player.
Show me how you play DVD's on a default windows install? or xvid or divx for that matter? Installation of libdecss is legal in more countries that it's illegal. In fact it's only illegal where there is legislation against circumventing copy protection, and I can only think of one country I know if that has such legislation.
Oh good... Now I can finally watch DVDs... But performance is crap... Ah right... That's cause out of the box, Linux doesn't enable DMA on DVD drives, so I have to type this wonderful thing as root at the command line that goes something like hdparm -d1 /dev/cdrom or somethingn along those lines.
When did you last use linux. I've used it since 2000, and every install has enabled dma by default.
Member since:2005-11-11
People don't use MS Office because they make intense usage of some real advanced hidden unique MS Office feature, but because they were taught to use it, that's all they know, and they are not interested in learning anything new.
Linux zealots should try to understand this concept: average user isn't interested in learning and reading. And why should they anyway? It's not their passion, it's not their hobby.
Member since:2005-10-08
> In any event, photoshop runs on crossover office.
And feels like exactly what it is: A gross hack designed for people who would rather put up with crap than simply use the right OS for the job because they have turned Linux into the poster child for the religious cause of socialist software.
> Digikam is a prime example.
Digikam has an outdated user interface that would have been considered current in 1995. It's an interface designed by techies for techies. Not for the average user. In otherwords, it's not a prime example.
> Show me how you watch quicktime videos on a
> default windows install?
I get a dialog box that says "This program requires Quicktime. I'm going to go fetch it and automatically start the install. you just need to click ok"
Compare that to Linux... Quicktime doesn't work. No help with how to make it work. Visit forum or IRC. Find out you need mplayer. Install. Still doesn't work. Go back to forum or IRC. Find out you need win32codecs. Install. Still doesn't work for playing embedded content in Web pages. Go back to forums or IRC for third time, ands find out you need a mozilla plugin (which has to be installed by hand). Some videos still don't play. Go back to forum or IRC for fourth time, only to finally be told "Sorry. You are just out of luck. Not all quicktime compression codecs are supported".
Sorry. But Quicktime is *MUCH* easier to get working on Windows than on Linux. And that is part of the problem. Even if some of these things can't be included in Linux because of patents, etc. There is no reason they can't make things easier. At least whwen you get an error, you could be told in the dialog where to get what you need to fix it. Instead of just told something like "Unknown file format". That's just lazy programming on the part of the developers. They follow the old UNIX philosophy of "we expect you know what you are doing". Well, the average user does not know what they are doing. And that philosophy simply doesn't work for them.
> I don't know when you last used mplayer, but
> the performance is phenomenal on my machines,
The real quicktime player in Windows can rewind, fast forward, I can drag the slider back to replay, etc. Without the software missing a beat. That simply doesn't work on Linux. Play with the current position too much, and you will get long delays cause of caching problems, and more often than not, the video and audio end up out of sync with each other. (The fact that it loses the video completely sometimes and only shows a black box where the video should be because of an apparent event handling bug where the software fails to act on the window manager telling it that it has become visible again after something has uncovered it is also a rather nasty problem.)
> and I can only think of one country I know if
> that has such legislation.
Well, for one. There is more than one country. And for another thing, a lot of countries are getting tougher on this. So expect more countries to pass laws that make it illegal as piracy grows worse.
> When did you last use linux. I've used it since
> 2000, and every install has enabled dma by default.
On hard disks yes. On optical drives, no. Even as little as 2 or 3 months ago, Ubuntu did not have DMA enabled by default on my DVD. And Ubuntu is supposed to be one of the most user friendly distros out there.
Edited 2006-07-01 03:04
Member since:
2005-10-08
> OpenOffice and Photoshop do in fact "do the job"
Come back to me when OpenOffice doesn't take 10 times longer than MS Office to start up. And when OpenOffice Calc can read my Excel Spreadsheets properly without messing up the formulas.
> As far as Gimp is concerned, it has 98% of Photoshop's features
You haven't used most of the advanved features of Photoshop have you? Gimp doesn't even come close. And also, Gimp is excesssively slow compared to Photoshop when dealing with production quality images.
> Linux is quite suitable for the majority of computer users, who
> only use their PCs for surfing the web, watching videos, listen
> to music and do "light" Office work
Of course it is... After I finally figure out that the reason I can't play my mp3 collection out of the box is because I have to install a plugin which I am given no help with other than "Unknown file format" when I try to play my mp3... And after I try to install that software that came with my new digital camera that makes it easier to work with photo collections and libraries, only to find out it only works with Windows... And after I figure out that the reason I can't view quicktime videos is because I need mplayer and mplayer-plugin... But wait... They still don't work? Oh... That's cause I have to manually fetch the win32-codecs and then copy them into a specific place. Ah... Finally I can view quicktime... And Although with bugs, and lousy performance... Unless it is using the Sorensen 3 compression format... Now I am just completely out of luck... And even now, some Web sites still insist on having Genuine Windows Media Player, and won't play at all. Oh... And of course, you mean it is suitable for viewing videos after I figure out that the reason I can't watch most DVDs is because I need to install a plugin to handle the encryption, which it is questionable whether I can legally even do in many countries... And even then, the chances of getting that plugin to work with many players installed by default on distros is virtually null. So time to look for a new player.
Oh good... Now I can finally watch DVDs... But performance is crap... Ah right... That's cause out of the box, Linux doesn't enable DMA on DVD drives, so I have to type this wonderful thing as root at the command line that goes something like hdparm -d1 /dev/cdrom or somethingn along those lines.
Yeah... Real suitable for the average user who just wants to browse the web, play music, and watch videos.
Edited 2006-07-01 01:08