Submitted by “Unlike the myths that are behind the prevention of Linux adoption, this piece will closely examine the indisputable obstacles and what will have to be done to overcome each of them. In the past, many desktop Linux users have opted to simply point to the hardware industry or Microsoft as the root cause of a lack of mainstream adoption. In reality, there are actually core issues extending beyond hardware – and competition from the proprietary markets – that simply must be dealt with head on. With that said, hardware compatibility and competition from closed-source vendors are valid issues, just not solid core excuses for the lack of mainstream interest. Here are the real hurdles.”
He only has 1 valid point: Hurdle 7: Serious commercial interest
The rest is just irrelevant gripes. I’m sorry, but a few flaws does not make a case against adoption. Windows has been seriously flawed in all it’s incarnations yet has enjoyed tremendous rates of adoption purely because of it’s commercial entrenchment.
All the author talks about in terms of technical issues are minor grazes against the platform compared to some of the deep wounds you could strike against Windows in terms of the billions (or even trillions) of dollars it’s insecurity has cost the globe.
Oh wait, I’m defending Linux. I must be hurdle 10, a purist.
Lately lots of governments have been adopting Linux en masse, it is ready and is getting adopted and all these ‘hurdles’ the author talks about are being addressed along the way.
I’m going to have to disagree. While the author obviously has some biased opinions, he did make some good points. Consistency has always been a problem with Linux. There’s just too many distributions and ways of configuring things. That’s what keeps Linux from really getting a strong foot hold in the desktop market. People like to use Windows or OS X as a comparison, but I don’t think Linux can really be compared to them because of how different it is. While Windows and OS X are complete packages, Linux is basically a kernel where users have the freedom to throw whatever software they want at it. That freedom has led to hundreds of distributions and configurations. In the end, at least for the desktop world, it’s what holds Linux back.
I have to disagree. So what if there are 100 different Linux distribution? Once you know one, you can be productive on nearly all of them. Also, who’s stopping you from choosing Debian, or Ubuntu, or Red Hat and just sticking with it?
I don’t know of any GPL clause that says you have to install a different flavor of Linux on every machine you own.
I’ve heard this complaint for almost 14 years now and I don’t believe it stands up to scrutiny at all.
The Author didn’t care how many distro’s there is – he’s mentioning consistency within the distro’s themselves and specifically mentions how some working stuff breaks between releases of uBuntu – quoting scanners and wireless drivers, etc.
In other words, the distros need to make sure that existing things that work in one release continue to work in the next release. That is what he is criticizing there.
Here is an example.
I installed gOS on my laptop.
I installed ubuntu desktop, and right before my eyes the current gOS desktop was corrupting itself. Then I noticed the login manager got corrupted.
Don’t ask me why, because I didn’t understand it.
Edited 2008-03-11 21:37 UTC
I think that’s the whole point of consistency. Ubuntu and Red Hat are very similar, but they’re also very different. You can’t configure things in the same places in both of them, even if to an average user they appear to be the same. If someone learns enough to fix a few of the problems they have in one, they may not be able to fix it in the other due to that specific configuration being different. Sure, it’s easy for someone who may be very technical with Linux, but it’s just not going to cut it for mainstream users.
You may disagree, but I think the only evidence one needs to look at is the numbers. You may say that over 14 years, the Linux usage rate has increased dramatically, but in reality you’re still looking about a few percent total. If Linux were a bit more standardized and consistent, without hundreds of distributions and configurations, you’d see much higher adoption of the OS for desktop users, as well as anyone who has little experience with Linux in general.
Well, if it keeps coming back after 14 years then it probably means that for some (many?) people that is indeed an issue. I believe that the diversity of the Linux distributions is more of an asset than a problem, but I wouldn’t blame people for not being comfortable with it.
Edit: language
Edited 2008-03-12 09:08 UTC
That’s the point though. The argument doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. When you press the people who are claiming that choice is a problem, it always comes down to the fact that they are using the diversity of Linux distributions as an excuse for their not using it.
It seems people feel they have to have an excuse (or excuses) for not using Linux, which is just dumb. If you want to use it, learn it, if not, don’t. Be proud of your choices.
In my opinion, Linux and BSD are the best operating systems out there. I’m happy with my opinion and it serves me well. I wish others could be equally happy about theirs.
I’m not sure about how commercial Apps fit into the wider picture of Linux Distros.
Often a commercial developer will (eg. Latest version of Maya 2008) standardize their App on one or two different distros. It may work with others but the developer will not provide support if anything goes wrong.
I read about an expensive engineering pro modeling app that simply refused to work on anything but the Redhat Distro. It turns out that it fails to load some libraries on Ubuntu because they’re compiled in a different version of gcc.
The Distro fragmentation means that even though commercial Apps are made for Linux they are not guaranteed to work on other Distros and if they do work your often left with resorting to forums where users provide the advice (eg. converting RPMs to Debian packet manager etc) to make it install. Some Apps don’t like wine others don’t like xgl, Compiz etc.
The average mainstream user just can’t afford deal with this.
>While Windows and OS X are complete packages
Yeah, yeah do not even try to use a driver from release to release – it will break! Even if you don’t see the breakage at once. I’m using Mac OS too, it’s possible to use a driver, sometimes, between different releases of the system, but don’t count on it! So this is the usual FUD of people who are comparing marketing strategies instead of *reality*!
Not rubbish at all.
All of his points are valid. They are real issues that regular, and geek, users face with Linux usage. And when “regular” users face those issues, they run away screaming.
I’m a huge Linux user. It’s my preferred desktop. I’m also a programmer by trade, and I’ve used Linux since 2002, and I’ve used a huge variety of distros, from the more techie side with Slackware, to the more newbie friendly like Ubuntu or PCLinuxOS. And I do continue to have issues. Some I can work around, some just requiring apt-getting something, but others require too much time and effort to make it worth my while.
I have a Dell 1526 Laptop with an ATI grahpics card, an AMD Turion, and a wide screen. I’ve tried Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mandriva, Fedora, Mepis, and openSUSE on this laptop. The only one that worked 100% (all hardware working and properly configured, and software mostly working) is Ubuntu. The rest of them has varying degrees of success, and varying degrees of effort to what did work, working.
Nevertheless, I have Ubuntu working 100%, and dual booting with Vista. I prefer using the Ubuntu side 95% of the time, as it fits my needs very well. Although it does have real bug issues as the article mentions.
But I’d like to add to the guys list, or actually expand on the underlying issues that cause the issues that he is talking about:
1. Lack of a consistent, stable ABI. Linus has said many times that lack of a stable ABI is good for the rapid progress and extreme flexibility of the Linux kernel. But it’s a double edged sword. It makes it much much harder for third parties to make drivers for Linux, and it makes it harder for distros to make everything work, and it makes it so that we have the situation of having to compile modules (a stable ABI would mean more precompiled modules could be used).
The lack of a stable ABI, while having it’s benefits, undoubtedly makes hardware market adoption harder, and harder for users to get things working.
2. Lack of standards across distros. Distros all have their versions of the file system, config files, libraries, glibc, and so on. This makes it much harder for software developers and ISVs to target Linux. They have to put in a lot of extra effort to compile and deploy to all the distros, for a tiny market share. This makes it not economically viable for ISVs to target Linux.
Linux Standard Base (LSB) tried to solve this issue, but distros pretty much ignore LSB.
The lack of a stable ABI, while having it’s benefits, undoubtedly makes hardware market adoption harder, and harder for users to get things working.
Yes, this is undoubtedly why more brogammers don’t write brograms for Linux.
You do know what an ABI is don’t you?
Application Binary Interface
Get ready to feel like a complete idiot…
Lack of stable ABI only affects out-of-tree drivers (which are unfinished and experimental most of the time).
And binary drivers, but that is the problem with their vendor’s philosophy.
Don’t be naive and think there would be much more available drivers were there a stable driver ABI. On the other hand, much of developments in kernel would be impossible while simultaneously keeping the ABI backwards compatible. That philosophy is absolutely valid, given how many problems crappy unfixable drivers cause in Windows and how MS had to rewrite the driver model and ABI (which required rewrite of most drivers) in Vista just to band-aid the terrible situation with XP driver quality.
I didn’t say he was incorrect, but valid technical gripes are not the same as hurdles to adoption of the platform. These are not hurdles and similar or worse problems are evident on more popular operating systems.
Only 1 correct point??? Totally correct about the driver modules, and on brainstorm my ideas were voted down to fix it, on the basis “it takes too much effort”. Linux users don’t want proper hardware support, or they aren’t logical thinkers.
They want the drivers added to the kernel instead, but some people need the drivers to install, and install CD’s may take 6 months to be updated, so thats why linux has no future in my opinion. People want better hardware support, but they hate the mechanisms needed to support it, because they might aid closed source companies (never mind they help open source ones too).
If you want to vote for fixing this the right way, some relevent brainstorms are:
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3932/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3868/
http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/3843/
Things have gotten so incrediby stupid in the linux world, that even when ubuntu does finally start supporting my new computer in 2 months (and yes, I’m not going to buy a out of date system just for linux), I may not even bother. Vista may be closed source, but Microsoft have their head screwed on better then some linux coders at the moment
Why do all of the Debian based distros have to call Firefox Iceweasel? Based upon the large percentages of web users whose user agent is some version of Firefox I think that it really hurts user comfort when purists like the developers of Debian who want to everything to follow their licensing terms refuse to work with the Mozilla Foundation to just accept Mozilla’s licensing of the trademarked portions of the browser.
I find that pretty petty.
Furthermore, the excessive amount of distros doesn’t help mass uptake of the OS either. We have a lawsuit going again Microsoft because people were confused about the difference between Vista Home Basic and Vista Home Premium. How are you going to navigate the half a dozen major commercial distros? Nobody wants to know the difference between Ubuntu, Linspire, Red Hat, Suse, Xandros, etc.
Ubuntu is starting to become pretty popular as a desktop distro, but if you ask what the easiest Linux distro is you will get several answers, which isn’t good.
Hardware and software support issue will vanish as soon as commercial companies show serious support for Linux. For an application like Photoshop a native port would be no small task. Unless there is a big enough user base to purchase said product no one will adopt it. Having more hardware list Linux support on the box and include complete stable drivers in the box will happen just as soon as more companies besides IBM, Novell, and Sun treat Linux as an important platform.
Firefox insist that patches are authorised by them before being released if you want to use the FF brand, which Debian found unacceptable from the POV of security fix release time. There’s also the issue of incompatibility with the Debian ‘constitution’. So the decision to rebrand wasn’t entirely political.
It isn’t purism, it’s legality. Is it “purist” not to ship DVD support when doing so is illegal? Most distributions don’t ship DVD support by default, or at all, because it is between probably and definitely illegal, depending on jurisdiction.
Debian has two choices: Install Firefox as-is without modifications, which would cause some fairly serious management problems and Debian Policy violations, or rename the browser. Mozilla does not give Debian any other options.
Not renaming the browser and continuing to distribute it in modified form is *illegal*, so that is not an option. Not modifying the browser presents serious technical challenges, to say nothing of security concerns; the effort expendature needed would not be worthwhile when an option exists which makes so much more sense.
If you want to gripe at someone for this, go talk to Mozilla people. Their position is reasonable, but it is still their fault that Debian can’t call what they ship Firefox.
I am currently installign Windows on a laptop to run my Tax software. I am not going to do this on the web.
Also, is there any timeline for when BluRay playback might be available on Linux?
-D
Try this:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats/BluRayAndHDDVD
It’s on Ubuntu’s web site, but it should be applicable to most Linux distributions.
Use terminal commands like this:
mplayer -vc ffvc1 /media/KING_KONG/HVDVD_TS/FEATURE*EVO
… only to watch the movie ?
Get a life, man!
Or just set the ffvc1 codec in the mplayer options and click on the files to watch the movie?
I do not have a Blue-ray drive myself, but I can bet everything else that watching BD movies on Windows is exactly the same “procedure” like watching usual DVDs
Do not change anything, do not type any commands at command prompt.
Not possible out of the box?
Again, with Vista watching a DVD is possible out of the box. You have to install third party software to be able to watch a BlueRay or HDDVD movie.
That is still easier than the hoops you have to jump through to get it to possibly work on Linux. (But not guaranteed to work.)
possible after clicking setup.exe or setup.msi and pressing “next” several times ?
…Why does that matter? Depending on what “linux” distro you use, you have to run a package manager and tell ti OK a time or two to install a file that is needed.
What is wrong with you people?
Because to watch BD Movies on GNU/Linux there is much more actions needed, than “simply install packages”.
It’s funny how people set different hurdles for Linux, I wouldn’t think tax returns are a issue on desktops.
Some people set hurdles that get higher with Linux yet Windows is allowed to push right through them. The same old hurdles keep coming up and Linux has jumped over them, perhaps linux has to jump over them twice or three times before people actually take note.
I think people confuse linux desktop hurdles with having every piece of software work under the sun before it becomes desktop worthy. Linux is not desktop worthy because it dont have X application is just not the way to think, but even if a app is offered people still turn their nose up at it.
I’d also like to address the usage of the world ‘indisputable’. This means proven correct.
So, having announced his indisputable list, he starts with hurdle 1, consistency and perception:
“One of the most annoying factors I find…”
I’m sorry, what’s that? What you find? Your opinion?
Then hurdle 9, workarounds vs fixing bugs, what trolling rubbish.
“Use the older, working version or consider a lame workaround as a solution.” I don’t consider using a 6 month old version of something to be lame. Also 10s of 1000s of hours go into fixing bugs to make sure open source software works well.
“Ubuntu keeps falling on its face” – how? Where’s the evidence?
There’s many other holes I could pick but I’ve wasted enough time already on this opinion article that is annoyingly masquerading as “undisputable” information.
It’s very clear this is opinion. The use of that word is debatable. He could have meant, to him.
OK sure, he may not be providing evidence to support his claims, and he may be a bit loose with the word ‘indisputable’, but that doesn’t mean he’s wrong.
I think he’s right on almost all ten points:
1. Consistency. I upgraded my PCLOS distro to 2005, and my wireless driver just stopped working.
2. Mobile Device Support. I have an HTC Artemis (WM6). There is NO support for this device, and it’s very unlikely that there ever will be.
3. Compatible Software. The GIMP sucks. I’m sorry, but it does. Everything is there, but it is an unholy mess and a chore to use once you have used Photoshop.
4. Wireless is a Mess. See earlier for wireless breakage example. Even once I got wireless working, it would drop out and not reestablish a connection. I now use ethernet to connect to a wireless bridge.
5. Hardware Compatibility. Almost none of my peripherals work as well as they do in Windows. They work, but I’ve either had to search high and low for an obscure solution, and even then the feature list is less than impressive.
6. Driver Modules. Windows: Right-click -> Install Driver. Linux: Right-click -> Commit Hari-Kari.
7. Commercial Interest. Don’t agree.
8. Off-the-shelf software. Don’t agree. You have to download, but I consider that “off the shelf”.
9. Workarounds. The linux release cycle is too frequent. This gives the impression that everything is always in development (which it is). For those in the know, that’s fun because there’s always some new feature round the corner. For businesses and regular users, that sucks. Linux flavours in general need fewer, more stable releases.
10. Apologists. Linux attracts more zealots (with more animosity) than other OS’ in my opinion. Linux has loads of problems, and is not sufficiently better than Windows/OSX to provide any kind of meaningful reason for regular users to migrate.
This has nothing to do with the fact that it’s not installed OEM, but more is about the question: “Why should I change?”. The only answer Linux can provide is: “Because it’s free (libre)”.
For some, that’s enough. For others, they want to see a tangible return on their investment of time, effort and pain in learning a completely new operating system.
Edited 2008-03-12 04:44 UTC
Apologists are an issue. I should know, I am one myself. If we could get fewer people making excuses for why things don’t work and more people trying to actually fix the problems, we’ll be better off.
That said it is important to note the difference between an uncaring Zealot (“You only have to write a small shell script to make that work, so what’s the problem?”) and someone who, Linux Is Not Windows-style, tries to explain why it makes sense. Too many people expousing on what Linux needs to change lump these people together, which I find to be unproductive. Different, when it works, is not worse and expecting it to work the same way is not cool, as long as it does work. When it *doesn’t* work pretending that “You shouldn’t need that,” or saying “Stop complaining, it’s free,” or similar, is not cool.
Folks, here’s the deal. If your OS is pre-loaded at the OEM, it succeeds. They make sure that the hardware works. They make sure DVD playback works. If your OS is instead installed after the fact, on hardware that consists of 100-billion permutations, you will have problems. For once and for all, it is not a _TECHNICAL_ issue. Linux has all the technical muscle and then some. It is a _BUSINESS_ issue. Bill Gates understood this from the beginning. It is not about superior software, etc. Your software must be “good enough”, and you must make deals with the OEMs/Schools/Businesses so your software is everywhere. End of story!
[EDIT] spelling
Edited 2008-03-11 16:43 UTC
As someone who had to install XP Professional on a Toshiba Satellite bundled with Vista Home, I have to agree. Getting XP as functional as Vista when it comes to optimizing/recognizing hardware was irritating because the US Toshiba site (and its tech support staff) will not tell you that the A215 is virtually identical to the A210 they sell only in Canada, where they’re required to support XP on it. As soon as I found the Canadian Toshiba site, I was able to download all the necessary drivers for sound, video, trackpad, hotkeys, etc.
It’s business at its worst.
>If your OS is pre-loaded at the OEM, it succeeds. They make sure that the hardware works
At what date did you lost contact to reality?
Apparently the people who bought the EeePc to use Windows XP with it disagree with you. People are well aware of Windows as a platform and for whatever reason (familiarity, software supply) won’t easily accept a new, unfamiliar operating system even if it is preloaded by the manufacturer.
Edited 2008-03-11 17:40 UTC
Sure some did, but the question is: how many person did change the OS of the EEE PC to Windows?
I bet that this is a very small percentage, like the percentage of people who ditch the preinstalled Windows with Linux (something around 1% I think).
Now I have no idea how to get the real figures..
Well, I don’t have any concrete numbers either but here is my train of thought: Windows is a known entity to most users. Someone who buys an EeePC will probably have come in contact with Windows already and it’s likely that Windows is his main OS on other machines. And the EeePC is similar enough from a design point of view (looks) that he (the user) will probably recognize it as a device which should be able to run Windows and opt for the known environment which will satisfy his needs as other Windows installations already do. People might accept another OS if a device looks sufficiently different from a desktop PC or notebook (e.g. mobile phones, organizers). But this is not the case for the EeePC. So my guess is that the conversion rate from Linux to Windows on the EeePC is much higher than vice versa.
Asus’ decision to sell the new EeePC directly with Windows might even accelerate this trend as people will be made directly aware that Windows runs on it. If my memory doesn’t fail me the Linux version will have a harddrive with larger capacity for the same price so some people might buy this version and install Windows on it afterwards.
Anyway, it’s all fishing in the dark to a certain degree but that’s what discussions boards (or comment sections) are made for 🙂
Everything mentioned in the article is credible but only a couple are really worth noting.
Linux has a plethora of problems as far as hardware support goes. This is almost exclusively attributed by the fact that Windows is dominate on OEM channels.
Being pre-installed ensures that everything is configured and guaranteed to function with all the hardware installed on the computer. Linux rarely has this luxury, except on servers. That said, Linux hardware support is fantastic with it’s weak market position.
Commercial software support is arguably the biggest deterrent. Windows has all the love of the commercial software market. In addition, Windows has access to most of the free software found on Linux because developers are actively porting them to Windows.
In summary, Windows has gained virtually all the commercial market and nearly all the popular FOSS solutions as well; whereas Linux might only have the latter.
In contrast, Linux users cannot tap into vast array of Windows-only commercial software products without relying on Wine, remote desktop, or virtualization solutions–all which have their own set of limitations and quirks.
In reality, Linux, like ALL other non-mainstream desktop OSes, suffer from the “double-edge sword” problem. The platform is currently in a troubled position due to the lack of popularity and support. Yet, its unable to fully redeem itself and improve enough to become attractive without gaining major popularity and support in the first place.
Edited 2008-03-13 00:03 UTC
Wal-Mart just announced it is going to quit offering all Linux pc’s. The demand just was not there for them to justify continuing selling pc’s with Linux preloaded.
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13505_1-9890880-16.html?tag=bl
Edited 2008-03-11 21:07 UTC
Walmart has decided not to sell the gpc on retail shelves. Sales through their online store were apparently much better, and they will be focusing on that. In fact, the online sales were never in question.
If my local Superstore is any indication, Walmart sells few PCs at the local stores. They never seem to have much stock or selection.
Edited 2008-03-11 21:20 UTC
Geeks tend to buy online so that may be a factor in continuing with sales there only. The point is that regular Joe Shmoe was not buying these PC’s to begin with. I love Linux, but I still feel it is no where near ready for the average user.
I agree with some of his points and disagree with some.
The biggest complaint from new GIMP users is the messy work-flow — pure and simple.
This is something I definitely agree. Even after having used GIMP for years I _still_ think it’s ugly and I hate the UI. Pixel would be a great replacement and it’s not even expensive, but, usually people just tell newbies to use GIMP and don’t even mention Pixel or any other alternatives to GIMP.
About wireless being a mess…Gee, I agree TOTALLY there. I always have issues with my wireless cards, and most of the time no GUI utils even work at all forcing me to drop to command line to connect to the AP.
Hurdle 6: When a new driver module is needed, it means compiling
This one I agree with totally. And it sucks. I have already proposed a few years back an online service with database about all (or most of them, atleast) out-of-kernel-sources modules, what kernels they work with, what hardware they support, any additional software they need to work properly and compilation instructions. And a client version provided by the Linux distros which automatically on boot checks if some hardware on the machine need any additional modules, connects to the service and then downloads and compiles anything needed automatically. Even better would be if the kernel supported precompiled binaries cos then the distro wouldn’t need to ship with any software necessary to compile modules, but no, it _still_ doesn’t.
One more thing:
As I commented already in another story, Vista and OSX both include software to play DVDs out of the box, and I think they both can play mp3s et al also. Yet I don’t know of a single Linux distro which does play DVDs or such without user having to first learn to enable additional repos and then finding out what software to install. Oh, and Linux DVD software suck. There’s like a gazillion pieces to choose from under Windows and OSX but I know only of 2 apps under Linux which even supports menus: Xine and Ogle. Average users DO indeed often want to play DVDs and when they can’t even do that under Linux what do you think they’ll think about Linux?
Unlike you, I think the GIMP UI is quite nice, actually.
I usually don’t have more image files opened at the same time, though. My max. is usually three, maybe four images.
And I wouldn’t really throw Pixel as an alternative.
It’s unfinished, the releases are getting delayed by months now, users who have purchased a license or two often feel that it’s almost like Pixel is a hobby project for its author.
A stable 1.0 release was supposed to be out a long time ago and Pixel’s author is still struggling to get a Beta 8 out.
I have bought Pixel myself, but as it is now, full of bugs and unfinished features, it’s mostly useless.
It’s very disappointing and it’s no wonder people don’t suggest it often – there is no good reason to do so. Not for me and apparently not for some other people as well.
By the way, VLC supports DVD menus.
The reason why most distributions can’t play DVDs out of the box is license issues.
If you’re willing to pay for those licenses, you can grab e.g. a Xandros or some paid Mandriva pack.
Edited 2008-03-11 16:50 UTC
>Yet I don’t know of a single Linux distro which does play DVDs or such without user having to first learn to enable additional repos and then finding out what software to install.
Slackware?
>Oh, and Linux DVD software suck. There’s like a gazillion pieces to choose from under Windows and OSX but I know only of 2 apps under Linux which even supports menus: Xine and Ogle.
Well, well VLC is able too and of course Kaffeine – there are more applications out there.
Oh and I do know at least five free operating systems (including some Linux distros) which can play DVD out of the box. But as usual, most of the time the lack of knowledge is the real hurdle.
You do not gain much if you’re fighting FUD with FUD.
Well, well VLC is able too and of course Kaffeine – there are more applications out there.
Oh and I do know at least five free operating systems (including some Linux distros) which can play DVD out of the box. But as usual, most of the time the lack of knowledge is the real hurdle.
Okay, I will add VLC and Kaffeine to my list of working players too then
Anyway, I still stand by my opinion that the actual DVD player software for Windows are usually more stable and easier to use than VLC/Ogle/et al. I always have atleast one crash every time I try to play a movie with Ogle, usually 2-3 crashes though.
But which Linux distros do you know of then that do support DVD playing out of the box? I learned that Mandriva does, if you buy and install the Mandriva Powerpack (which costs a bit more than I would like but it’s still a lot cheaper than Windows or OSX)
At what point did Windows support it out of the box, while we’re at it? I’ve always had to dig around for a CD of PowerDVD so that I could play a DVD with VLC.
At what point did Windows support it out of the box, while we’re at it?
Sorry, I am not capable of answering that. I just thought that Vista does support DVD playback on default install but since I don’t own Vista nor do I use Windows for anything else but playing and surfing the web occasionally I just don’t really know for certain if it does require anything additional. If Vista does not indeed support DVD playback then I do admit that I was wrong
Vista Home Premium and Ultimate support both DVD and Mp3 playback out of the box.
Never had to install any different codecs or programs to make DVDs work in VLC, they just work.
This reply makes a lot of sense. I installed Linux on my last computer, and I experienced pretty much the same things as he did. For someone just starting with no Linux experience, I’ve found many Linux users to be elitist; at least online. They talk down to you if you ask a question.
You guys can bitch all you want, but the author is just trying to point out areas that need addressing for Linux to gain more widespread acceptance. I get the feeling sometimes that some Linux users think they’re in a clique, and they don’t want anyone else to join. You can’t compile you own drivers? You must be stupid. Screw you.
You guys can bitch all you want, but the author is just trying to point out areas that need addressing for Linux to gain more widespread acceptance. I get the feeling sometimes that some Linux users think they’re in a clique, and they don’t want anyone else to join. You can’t compile you own drivers? You must be stupid. Screw you.
That is really negative and I sure wish people wouldn’t act that way. I personally sometimes just hang out in #Gentoo in irc to answer to questions no matter how stupid they may be and to help people out, just because I wanna be make myself useful and help others to enjoy Linux.
About compiling drivers/modules..Ugh, that’s something even I dislike doing. I do try to help people out, but I often wish you didn’t always have to compile all the modules but just could use a precompiled binary instead :/
Sadly, I can’t remember the name off the top of my head but there is the build of GIMP with the rewritten UI specifically designed for photoshop like workflow.
http://www.gimpshop.com/
Do NOT use that link! That is a fake site where they just want to gather lots of email addresses to spam! It is NOT the official site, be warned!
You’re looking for GimpShop: http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294
The last time I compiled it it failed somehow, it looked the same as regular Gimp but crashed a lot more. But that is a good long while ago and I have forgotten about it. Didn’t remember before you mentioned about it.
By the way, GimpShop is available for Windows, OSX and Linux, and apparently even supports CMYK nowadays.
Someone try it out and post your opinion about it here?
Tried it a couple of months ago: Didn’t work. (Tried it on both Windows and Linux.)
#2 Device support
It’s true, the software included with portable devices is almost always Windows-only. I’ve encountered that with cell phones, GPSes, calculators, and PocketPC. There are some replacement apps available for Linux, but the functionality and availability is sketchy at best.
#8 Software availability
Unless you live in a large city, finding Linux (or Mac) software at retail stores is impossible. Even in “The City” retailers are sparse and selection is minimal.
One past Linux problem not addressed by this author, Dependency Hell. “Application X requires Library B, version x.x, which requires…” I’ve been away from installed Linux distros for a couple of years so maybe it’s no longer an issue?
Modern package managers took away all the guesswork. Installing everything you need including dependencies is just a click away.
puuhhhh-lease. I can show u a dependancy problem any day. And you can even read about them in these forums any day. It doesn’t matter whether it is deb, RPM, Gentoo, etc… the flaws are there for various reasons and they will not go away any time soon. Did I mention BSD? They are there in BSD, too, and about that, you can also read here.
If you:
* Use a distribution’s stable release (not a dev or test release)
* Install via a package manager OR install packages built for the distribution and release you are using.
Then you should have no dependency issues. If you do see depends breakage you are probably either using a non-stable release or installing a package not intended for the version you’re running.
Actual bugs in package managers are extremely rare. Bugs in packages (e.g. incorrect, circular or otherwise broken depends) are more frequent, are distribution-dependant and tend to be uncommon in stable, released distributions. Debian, especially, is very good about not having broken depends in stable, which is largely where its reputation of stability comes from.
Dependency hell hasn’t been an issue for some time now in many Linux distributions.
I’ve been using Arch Linux for almost a year now and I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with it.
Of course, if you’re installing from sources, you might run into some packages not being installed on your system, but unless you’re trying to compile something obscure, you can most likely grab the dependencies using the package manager of your distribution easily.
You can usually order commercial software online and have it delivered.
The device support it mostly a device vendor issue, really. Many of them are just not willing to pay a few more developers to get their devices working on Linux like they do on Windows.
Dependency hell hasn’t been an issue for some time now in many Linux distributions.
Glad to hear it. That was one of the primary reasons I didn’t get more involved with Linux earlier on, the difficulty in installing and configuring new software and drivers.
I was reminded of the issue a while back, when actually installing a Windows Open Source / Freeware program, some Linux app that had been ported to Windows. The program required some library or “framework” that wasn’t included with the installation files and had to be downloaded from a different website and installed as a completely separate operation. I thought, “Oh no, this is Linux circa 1995 all over again.”
You can usually order commercial software online and have it delivered.
Absolutely. When seriously shopping for anything I utilize online retailers for superior service, lower prices, and better selection. But how many people seriously shop for software? Most of my purchases are from the bargain bins at Hastings or wherever. Not being able to physically browse through a decent selection would really take much of the ‘fun’ out of the computer hobby.
The device support it mostly a device vendor issue, really. Many of them are just not willing to pay a few more developers to get their devices working on Linux like they do on Windows.
Regardless of who’s at fault, it’s still Linux’s problem.
Well, I’m using the GIMP, Inkscape, Openoffice.org, VLC and some other open source software given away for free, only GIMP used to have a dependency on GTK+ for Windows, which, however, was available for download from the same website for years. That’s now history with the GIMP 2.4 installer for Windows.
I’ve done most of my shopping online for the last year or so of pretty much every small item you usually buy (not food, of course), mostly books and DVDs, though. I’ve become very comfortable with shopping online, it’s easy, you can return what you buy if you find out it’s not what it’s supposed to be and you usually get discounts for online shopping.
It’s a problem for Linux / *BSD / Solaris / maybe even Mac OS X users.
Thing is, you can’t make the companies write drivers and utilities for every OS that has more than a hundred thousand users and if I were a software business, it would probably look like a loss of time and money.
It’s similar with license problems with MP3s, DVD and Blu-ray playback, etc. Cyberlink made a DVD version of their player, I think, so now it’s one issue down. Unfortunately, VLC has always worked better for me than any DVD player for Windows, so if I get a Cyberlink DVD player, it’ll be just to support its development.
>I’ve been away from installed Linux distros for a couple of years so maybe it’s no longer an issue?
One of the major problems in Windows is the ease of installation. Overwriting new libraries with old ones is just a nice event and leads to the usual problems even today. There is no dependency hell in Linux, apart from rpm, if you are using your mind instead messing around with different repos just to install something. Usually ‘version junkies’ are the first ones which mess with the package management, because they have to use the latest software day by day.
Yep, it’s an issue that I haven’t been exposed to much lately because I’ve only been using Linux via various LiveCD distros.
In the past though it was a huge hurdle, so I was surprised the author didn’t mention it. Installing something in Mandrake or Red Hat was a breeze… just as long as you were installing from their distro pack of CDs. Installing anything ‘new’ was a deal-breaking headache.
can you repeat the same tired old arguments and still make the news? Apparently infinitely many.
Tired or not, the arguments are valid.
Lets just say I disagree but that’s not the point. The point is that there’s nothing new here, it’s same arguments (right or wrong) that we’ve heard many times before. It’s not news and it’s not really interesting either.
I’ll be more interested when the problems with Linux cited in the article are solved.
I have to agree with most of what the author had to say.
The open-source community is no longer just a gaggle of developers and programmers, trying to see if they can program a new platform.
Businesses are now running this platform as mission critical.
Linux is not a “purist” OS anymore. Geeks, nerds and the like are not the only ones running this now.
Business is now a contributor to the promulgation of this software. If it’s going to develop and grow the way it should, the community will have to adapt to that, instead of shunning it.
If it takes a fork to do so, then that may be what has to occur. Fork it so that you have a desktop-centric communtiy, and a purist community.
Create an end-to-end solution that is unique, but also well-refined and polished. Ubuntu is reaching for the brass ring, but it has a lot more growth to do before it’s close to grabbing it.
QFT. Ubuntu maintainers are inexcusably sloppy, and the notion that this OS courts commercial support is offensive. Bugs are reported repeatedly to Launchpad, then effectively ignored until the people who posted them have become disenchanted with the platform. We’ve seen regressions with wireless, IDE support, server delivery of PHP, multimedia-critical vector math libraries, competent filesystem installation…
…And even when patches/compilation solutions have been pointed to the developers, nothing gets done. NOTHING. Shuttleworth needs to clean house when it comes to slackers — or abandon the idea that he could reasonably compete with commercial OSes in the business market. I don’t much care which.
This. Either fund a series of reverse engineering summers of code, sue the crap out of vendors until they release APIs, or bundle ndiswrapper by default with Linux and tell end users they are going to install Windows drivers inside Linux. I resent having to carry a printout with me to the store and squint over 4 point package label text telling me which revision of the hardware I’m looking at to guarantee it’s compatible with known native Linux drivers.
No, the biggest complaint is the lack of CMYK support, followed by the lack of interoperability with PS plugins. Those are dealbreakers. GIMP also does not have a properly documented native file format, which doesn’t exactly incline programmers to write apps that support it. There’s a reason why people are busting ass to get Photoshop working inside of WINE.
A better version of this argument goes as follows: If you buy Windows or OS X, you have an OS where you can potentially develop commercial applications, use an integrated creative suite like Adobe’s CS, or manage your finances using commercial software.
If you use desktop Linux, the moment you install the Flash plugin for your browser you just defined the difference between your OS and Win/OS X.
Edited 2008-03-11 17:41 UTC
>I have been using one distro or another longer than many of the “purists” out there,
>But there remains one last “bug” that needs to be stamped out and it is the very tired term FUD.
And another excuse to flame other people because Linux doesn’t fit in _his_ very own belief of a ‘desktop’.
>And while purists will point out that this type of regression issue could have been by simply using Debian “proper,” the fact remains that most users, despite many recent usability improvements, would be lost using Debian.
This is such a big nonsense. These users are lost in Windows world too. He is looking for the ‘one fits all’ operating system and he has got a lot of wishes but he doesn’t care about *open source* and about *community*. It’s not a commercial os, it’s a community os – so every single user has to work on it, if they decide to use it. Helping doesn’t mean everyone has to be a developer, but it involves knowledge. Knowledge he denies with every single word of his rant. Denying knowledge is the first step to fail in every operating system.
He wants something, so he should do something. A rant doesn’t help at all.
Btw. Wifi is a mess in every single operating system which allows more than a couple of chipsets like in Mac OS X and even then there are more than enough problems.
I do agree with items 2, 4, and 7. None of these things are issues for me, but I can see how they could be issues to others.
Here are my disagreements with the rest:
1) Anytime Microsoft upgrades anything, part of the upgrade is to run the software through the Microsoft Menu Jumbler. Watching people try to get around in Vista and Office 2007 is very amusing, yet people still use it. Therefore, I don’t think this is a real issue. When people are motivated, they will learn.
3) It isn’t any more difficult that performing a Google search.
5) This is pretty much a non-issue nowadays. Also, Vista had some serious driver issues (and still does to some degree), but people still use it.
6) Not necessarily.
8) Off the shelf software is an antiquated paradigm. Most commercial software can be bought online, and I don’t see how that is any different that using dpkg/apt, or similar tools. If you mean commercial software support isn’t that good, well, it doesn’t need to be for the most part.
9) All software has bugs and requires workarounds. At least with the OSS crowd, things tend to get fixed faster than they do in commercial products.
10) If you mean people who actually use Linux will jump up and point out the flaws in your logic, I suppose. Don’t begrudge that. Finding flaws and correcting them is a good thing, albeit uncomfortable at times when others are pointing them out to you.
Totally agreed related to Broadcom. It really sucks.
In my opinion, it boils down to just one point:
Users Perseption:
Linux is (in my opinion) as ready for the desktop as Vista is. However people still persieve Linux to be an unconfigured CLI OS for g33ks.
Sure Linux has it’s bugs which require some degree of expertiese to resolve, but then I’ve lost track of the amount of times people have asked for my help with Vista too.
As users persieve Linux to be infinately more complex than it actually is they simply will not try it.
Plus with Windows being on the vast majorety of office machines and desktop pre-installs (as well as FUD spreading articles like yesterdays laughable OS comparision) – this is a preseption that’s unlikely to change any time soon.
I agree wholeheartedly. Perception is the barrier. People I talk to have either never heard of it or think they’ll never be able to run it (the “it’s too geeky for me” mentality).
In my experience, Linux issues are no more difficult to fix than Windows issues. People are simply afraid of what they’re not accustomed to.
Actually, the biggest barrier is that GNU/Linux does not, for the most part, come pre-loaded on the computers down at the “big box” retailer. The pre-loaded OS’s are from Microsoft and Apple, so that’s what people buy. In order to gain a large foothold, GNU/Linux needs to become as ubiquitous either the Microsoft or Apple OS is on pre-configured computers at the “big box” retailer.
That would be a valid argument, but for a couple of points. First, which distro? Which publisher’s version of Linux should be the one to step up to the plate? Ubuntu has made inroads with Dell, but so far it’s not doing all that well.
Then you have to wonder what the current OS leader will do. Remember BeOS? Remember when they had a signed contract with Compaq to offer BeOS as an alternative to Windows 98 on their computers? Then Microsoft stepped in and told Compaq that if they sold even one BeOS based computer they would never sell Windows on another Compaq computer. Yes, Microsoft got into trouble and even got dragged into court over that, but the computer manufacturers are still scared of such tactics. Dell and HP are finally growing a pair, but not fast enough to make a difference right now.
It’s going to take more of the smaller players like Asus to start really bringing Linux into the mind of the general populace before we really start seeing it on major-label desktops and laptops.
I don’t know if I would say everything is perception. There are certain things like support for mobile devices, which really is much more difficult on Linux than it is on Windows or MacOS, but you are absolutely correct that people have a lot of misconceptions about Linux. To certain degree Vista adoption over XP has been slowed by misconceptions as well, but that is a bit off topic.
If people were selecting an OS tabula rasa I think Linux would do quite a bit better. The problem is people are pretty accepting of most Windows problems because they have became used to the issues and presume that the problems in Windows are universal.
Some poorly argued opinion (claimed to be indisputable…), some claims not backed up by anything and finally some insults to the so called “purists”.
Really, what an incredible disapointment.
I really wish that one day someone who can actually write and knows what a proper argument is, will sit down to write an article like this, as it sure is an interesting subject.
But this? You sure get the impression the author is some spoiled 15 year old brat blogging from his mother’s basement. Pathetic.
How long has your head been in the sand?
His list represents real issues that real people face, plain and simple. Denying the existence of those issues will ensure that they continue.
People in the Linux world need to be open to criticism of Linux, otherwise, it will never improve to the degree that mass adoption of desktop Linux is possible.
Desktop Linux has made huge strides. But that has only happened due to people recognizing various shortcomings and then working on them.
Really, do you think the wireless issue is completely solved?
Do you think Aunt Tillie is willing and able to compile a module in order to get her hardware working?
Do you think that people that are used to Photoshop are going to flock to The Gimp’s interface?
Do you think it’s easy for third party ISVs to target all the various distros, or at least the most popular?
Do you think it’s easy for hardware manufacturers to write drivers to a non stable ABI? Or do you think that in the highly competitive video card market NVidia or ATI or whoever else is willing to give away specs so that their competitors can take it?
Do you deny that Ubuntu, with all it’s positive qualities, has major issue with bugs, and not fixing them?
And so on and so forth.
Now, the Windows world has issues, of course. Vista in particular has been a train wreck. But by and large, it’s easier to get stuff working (including wireless, multimedia, and so on) with Windows, even with Vista.
But we Linux enthusiasts, or the community in general, can’t just react to Linux issues with “well, Windows has those issues too!”. That’s like saying “use Linux, it’s no worse than Windows” – hardly a compelling argument to get people to switch!
Edited 2008-03-11 18:17 UTC
As I said, I sure think it is an interesting subject and I wish someone would write a good article about it.
So where did you get the impression, I didn’t want to read wellfounded critical artcles?
My point was not that I don’t want to read articles on the subject, but that this article was an incredibly poor article on the subject for the reasons mentioned.
Hey, when you edit your post like this, you really make it hard for people to have a discussion with you.
To address your points:
Really, do you think the wireless issue is completely solved?
No, where did I say it was? Do I however think the author makes a compelling case about why the issue is mainly linux’ fault? No, I don’t.
Do you think Aunt Tillie is willing and able to compile a module in order to get her hardware working?
No, where did I state otherwise?
However, do I think that compiling your own modules is something many users will have to do? No, I don’t.
Do I think that if users have to do it it’s linux’ fault, as the author claims? No, I don’t.
Do I think if users have to do it, it has a lot to do with the things the author claims aren’t issues, namely market share? Yes I do.
Do you think that people that are used to Photoshop are going to flock to The Gimp’s interface?
No, and where did I say I did?
But do I think the reason that there is no Photoshop for Linux has a lot to do with the reasons the author blankly discards? Yes, I do.
Do you think it’s easy for third party ISVs to target all the various distros, or at least the most popular?
Nope, and where did I say I did?
However, is this something that is widely discussed in the community and that people are working on? Yes, it is.
Do you think it’s easy for hardware manufacturers to write drivers to a non stable ABI? Or do you think that in the highly competitive video card market NVidia or ATI or whoever else is willing to give away specs so that their competitors can take it?
First off, giving away specs is not the same as revealing all your secrets to your competitors. Stop spreading FUD.
Second, ATI is exactly doing this right now, as is Intel.
Do you deny that Ubuntu, with all it’s positive qualities, has major issue with bugs, and not fixing them?
Well, actually based on my experience, yes, I’d deny this. Ubuntu certainly is far from perfect, but this holds true for any other OS I’ve ever used.
All your responses are good, and I see where you’re coming from now. In your original post, it sounded like there was some denial of issues. But now it becomes apparent that your objections to the original article was that it was long on complaining and short on solutions, or even realizing the improvement and/or that there are people working on those issues.
Aunt Tillie should be using OS X, or have a nephew to do it for her.
I think those people can run Photoshop in another OS. A virtual, even, if they want Linux as a main desktop.
Yes. If I can spend half an hour and get a 100% compatible build set up at Newegg, it shouldn’t be that much work for vendors. But, it is work, and it costs them. There is no way it is all that hard, but they may not consider it worth the cost. In fact, it might not be worth the cost.
Yes. Start with specs, and/or a working driver from another Unix-like OS. Have your own people be maintainers of an open source driver for the Linux kernel. Or, just let people get the specs and do the rest themselves.
If that’s enough to deter them, why worry about their switching? Having another OS to choose, like Linux, doesn’t mean that you should abandon Windows.
Why must Linux become better at everything for everyone? It’s the best for me, and obviously, a lot of other folks who use it. I don’t think Ubuntu’s bug #1 is worth reaching for. It’s the kind of goal that will not allow the distros, or underlying systems that make them up, to become their best.
Hurdle 10 has to be my biggest gripe with desktop linux. The community really does spoil it for me. Their anit-MS everything and pro-Linux everything just ticks me off so much that I don’t want to use it. So I’ve been looking at other alternatives (desktopbsd, openbsd) when I want to play with a unix environment. I get a feeling of happiness knowing that using something other than linux ticks them off more.
Don’t you think it’s, uhm, kind of pathetic to let your sympathis for random people on the internet decide for you which operating system you use?
No I don’t.
Sorry, I am still using BeOS 5.0.3, the few times I looked to moving to Linux the biggest turnoffs were it’s Gurus.
I wanted technical questions answered so I looked to people who would help me understand certain issues and write the code I wanted to write. Each and every one was a pompous ass in one way or another.
It has turned out to be easier to write my own device drivers in BeOS to keep it running than to deal with these people in the Linux world.
Yes, I know you are not all like that, but the sheer number of ones I have run into does not help to give me any warm feelings about joining the Linux community (At-least what I find here in southern Ontario).
Edited 2008-03-11 21:13 UTC
FWIW, I’m a Linux advocate, and it doesn’t tick me off. I’m happy for you. Use what you are comfortable with. Bad advocacy is far worse than no advocacy at all, and this is a good example of how it can do harm. I can see that we’ve made an enemy of you, which is extremely unfortunate. And so avoidable.
It’s hard for me not to hate Microsoft after battling them in my professional life for coming up on 20 years. But I really do try to remind myself frequently that I am pro-unix and pro-FOSS rather than anti-Microsoft. There is a big difference.
I know that we’ve had words over the KDE4 thing. And I’ve expressed a bit of annoyance at Kris’ benchmarks being paraded around over and over again in the last weeks.
But I would like to apologize if I have contributed to your disenchantment with Linux.
Edited 2008-03-11 18:34 UTC
See, why can’t more of the community be like you? Its not you that has turned me off from linux but others who are more vocal about it and not so much on this site. If they were civilized in their discussions like you I’d have nothing against linux.
I bet most people in the community are like him.
Unfortunately the small part that’s completely gone nuts is also by far the most vocal.
Judging from the hatred in some of the comments here on OSNews, there must be some really annoying Linux users.
Oddly enough I’ve never run into one myself as far as I remember.
I find all the comments along the lines of ‘Everything was fine until I tried Linux’ a little strange to say the least. Who hasn’t heard of live cds in this day and age?
It is fun, though, to scare the living daylights out of traumatized Windows users 😉
About two weeks ago I and another student were working on a Windows Pc and we both agreed that this OS sucked so I said (jokingly) “No problem, we’ll just install Linux on it!”
You should have seen the prof’s face while he was trying to figure out if I was serious 😀
How so?
The most annoying problem that desktop Linux faces is too many self-styled journalists composing lists of what Linux’s problems are, and then failing to contribute a damned thing to help out.
Where I come from, we call this useless dead weight.
You have to use your own god gifted two legs. You cannot win race by three legged two-in-one runner.
Linux is waste of time for ordinary user..
Calculate countless hours spent on installation, editing xorg and getting working scanner, digicam etc…I think opinion poll will show average user spends at least 20 hr for installing basic linux system and spend another 50 hrs for getting peripherals work. That is 70 hrs x$10=$700 effective cost for joe or business. Compare it with 20 hrs spent for Xp +peripherals. That is saving of $500..
Dont give me sh** that ubuntu installsworks within half an hour. Of course without any peripherals…You cant fool yourself for getting working linux box without spending 70-80 hrs…
Interstingly read ‘why ubuntu sucks
http://stonedeadparrot.blogspot.com/2007/05/why-ubuntu-sucks.html
FUD much?
Calculate countless hours spent on installation, editing xorg and getting working scanner, digicam etc…I think opinion poll will show average user spends at least 20 hr for installing basic linux system and spend another 50 hrs for getting peripherals work. That is 70 hrs x$10=$700 effective cost for joe or business. Compare it with 20 hrs spent for Xp +peripherals. That is saving of $500..
Where do you get these numbers, or are you just pulling them out of your ass? On a modern desktop Linux distro you don’t need to modify xorg.conf, getting scanner to work is just to install XSane, digicams work out of the box (atleast all the ones I’ve ever laid my hands on, and that includes some very el-cheapo ones, some mid-range ones, and more expensive ones like the Canon EOS 400D)… Oh, and well, let’s see. I actually gave my girlfriend a task of installing Ubuntu on our laptop after I had erased the hard drive. She was of course a little baffled cos she’s never installed anything even remotely like that. But she succeeded pretty well and was surfing the web not long after, without my help or intervention. Didn’t take 50 hours, that’s for sure.
This isn’t entirely true. I have to edit xorg.conf on both my laptop and desktop to get things working properly. On my desktop, it’s for proper video and monitor configuration. On my laptop it’s for Synaptics. That doesn’t include all of the other editing I have to do to load the proper modules and blacklist or disable others. Some distros do better than others, but for me, none have been perfect from the start as far as hardware detection/configuration is concerned.
These are all, more or less, valid points (for some people, at least). However, for most Windows/OSX users that don’t really care about how uber their choice of OS makes them look (or thinks it makes them look), then they usually are asking themselves something like “what does switching to Linux get me that I don’t already have?” Because the trade-off is all the headaches mentioned here, and moreover, the annoying fanboism that one inevitably encounters when entering the Linux community, as another reply mentioned.
I’ll just add that Linux won’t get there by just copying off of what Windows and OSX are doing. Sure, use a good idea when one comes along, but if all you’re doing is playing catch-up with MS and Apple, and poorly implementing their features on top of that, then most people aren’t going to take you seriously. After all, for as much as Linux weenies like to criticize the competition, what have Linux distros become more and more like over the years? Yep, Windows and OSX. I don’t want just another, less functional, version of Windows, free or not.
*nix once had, and in some OSes like BSD and Solaris, still does have, a proud tradition of creating a unique environment of its own. Whoever most of these people are working on the latest “me too” GUI app for Linux, they seem to be totally devoid of any concept of the “Unix Philosophy”, which was what made Unix such a great system architechure in the first place.
He goes over some already well worn ground, and misses some fundamental issues that are related to the peripheral stuff he describes:
1. Developers, both open source and otherwise, need straightforward development tools and APIs to create lots of software.
2. Developers and users need a straightforward way to install a wide variety of software on their systems and get it out to people.
Once you have this, just about everything else can be fixed.
> Hurdle 1: Consistency and perception
Personally, I haven’t had any issues on any of the machines I’ve installed Ubuntu. If you choose good hardware to begin with, your hardware shouldn’t flack out during upgrades. Granted upgrades aren’t 100% all the time (sometimes it appears to go in loops unless you know what you’re doing), and that needs to be fixed, but I have 100% confidence in the upgrade process. That’s something I never had on Windows, where your only real option was to back everything up, do a fresh install, restore, and reinstall all your software.
> Hurdle 2: Mobile device support is a joke
Can’t comment on Windows-specific Mobile devices, but all digital cameras, iPods, and other mobile devices that I’ve tried work flawlessly. Mobile device might be incomplete, but it’s not a joke.
> Hurdle 3: Finding compatible software when switching OSes is difficult
GIMP isn’t the only option but this is a valid point precisely because he has no idea that there are other options. No easy answer to this. You’ll face the same issue if you move from Mac to Windows or Windows to Mac. For the novice, the best choice is to ween yourself off commercial software while you’re on Windows. There’s plenty of open source software like OpenOffice, Firefox, Avidemux, ArtOfIllusion, etc that work on Windows. Once you’re free of that dependence, this isn’t an issue.
> Hurdle 4: Wireless is a mess
Again a hardware issue. Pick the right hardware and this isn’t a problem.
> Hurdle 5: Hardware compatibility lists
This is the big issue, but if you use an OEM like Dell (which most novice users would) or go to an independent clone maker and ask for a Linux compatible machine (you can in many cities and you can often find people in stores like BestBuy who are geeky enough to use Linux), this isn’t that big of an issue.
Perhaps the best solution to this problem is a short “How to buy hardware for Linux so your life is easier FAQ”?
> Hurdle 6: When a new driver module is needed, it means compiling
True, but if you buy the right hardware, this isn’t an issue since most drivers (including drivers for really old hardware) are included in the stock kernel, and Ubuntu at least has a backports kernel with most new drivers in case your device is a bit too new. This isn’t quite the case on Windows where for some reason, most devices, even USB devices or some printers that used to be included in the stock Windows 2000 kernel seem to want to install drivers. I have no idea why since a USB device should just work and if the driver used to exist, why do they drop it in XP?
> Hurdle 7: Serious commercial interest
Definitely helps, but not required. The foundations are strong already, so if people come the commercial interests will follow or be shut out by their competitors.
> Hurdle 8: Off-the-shelf software
No. Anyone who has installed software such as the full version of Nero knows, “off-the-shelf” software often thinks that it’s the only kid on the block and tries to take over your machine, or has planned obsolescence so that you have to buy the next version if you upgrade. Nero isn’t even the worst offender. Granted, there’s a lot of well behaved niche applications, but Linux *can’t* become dependent on them because if it does, it prevents Linux from expanding from mobile devices on non-Intel chips to large mainframes. If there is a gap, it needs to be filled by free software (ironically he railed against proprietary drivers).
> Hurdle 9: Workarounds vs. fixing the bugs
Not Linux specific. If you’ve ever trained anyone in Windows you’ll notice how many workarounds and hacks you’ve acclimatized yourself too. Linux has these issues too, but the main difference is that Linux is more open about it and a big fuss is made precisely because Linux’s standards are higher than Windows. This is a good thing (as long as you’re specific about your complaint). Mac users tend to be even more critical than Linux users about the work arounds in their own OS which Linux and Windows users would just shrug off.
> Hurdle 10: Apologists and purists
Not Linux specific. I can’t speak for the apologists who cry FUD when there is no FUD, just a mismatch in expectations or mis-perception.
But the purists are another thing. If you go to the doctor and say “Doctor, I feel hurt when I move my arm in this funny way” and the doctor says “Then don’t move your are in that funny way”, you really can’t complain. If you’re doing something unnatural for your arm, then it’s unreasonable to expect a fix. Linux is what it is and it critically depends on FOSS to be at it’s core. It’s the whole reason why Linux’s greatest features (e.g. package management, huge repositories of free software, quick innovation, lack of vendor lock-in, portability to non-Intel chips, etc) is even possible.
Sure Linux can grow faster if it “sells out”, but then in a few years, Linux would be Windows and we’ll all long for the days when Linux actually worked (the way many Windows users have fond memories of Windows 2000) and Windows 98) and want to pick another OS.
Linux is growing at the pace it should. Desktop Linux has arrived. Perhaps not for everyone, but I can say that 8 years ago, it was a great Unix desktop, 5 years ago, it was a great Windows Expert who’s willing to experiment desktop. 3 years ago, it was a great Windows Power user desktop (which was comfortable using VMWare for those one or two special apps). These days, it’s something my wife (a non-technical scientist) can use and administer on her own. It’s not quite at the stage where my parent can use and administer on their own, but I’d be surprised if this were not the case in 3 more years.
Your rebuttal boils down to this: “buy the right hardware”. Which is fine, as long as you you’re an OEM packaging “all the right hardware”, but NOT so good for consumers who get hardware from a variety of sources; who don’t want and don’t have access to technical information on drivers; who may already have existing hardware and want it to “just work”; who may have to work with an approved enterprise purchase list or preferred vendor; or who can’t afford “all the right hardware”, although a possibly lower-priced would do the trick. It’s no longer sufficient for people to say “buy all the right hardware”. In order to make Linux ubiquitous, you NEED TO MAKE LINUX UBIQUTIOUS. That means making it work on virtually all hardware on the market.
In my opinion – my dear fellow linuxian fanboiz – people actually want to feel that their life is easier, not only be convinced that it is easier.
I do not know about Macs (I never used one) but Windows OS is simply easier and more intuitive than GNU/Linux-based OS.
One example – clipboard.
On Windows you can for example copy address or text in Firefox, restart Firefox, and paste web address or text to restarted Firefox. It is essential when installing a Firefox extension which requires restart after its installation.
Now try the same thing in Ubuntu.
Well, I don’t know why this should not be possible for Gnome, but I just tried it, and under KDE it works flawlessly.
You just have to do the same as under Windows:
– Mark the URL
– Type <crtl>-<C>
– Exit Firefox
– Restart Firefox
– Again mark the URL
– Type <crtl>-<V>
What does NOT work, is just marking the URL and exiting Firefox. The usual “auto-clipboard” feature of Linux only keeps the marked text in the clipboard, as long the text is highlighted. When Firefox is closed, the text in the URL-bar no longer is highlighted, therefore it no longer is available for pasting.
IF it really does not work under Gnome, then it is simply a wrong choice of desktops. Try Kubuntu, or stay with Windows.
I might add that most Windows users will be more familiar with KDE anyway.
No, it isn’t
You ask me if I feel convinced that it is the same ? NO! I am not! And it is not the same! CTRL-C CTRL-V is easier and faster than adding the address to the “favourites”.
Maybe it is usual (or should I say: K-usual) K-feature for you not for me. For me clipboard should keep its content until replacing it with other content, pressing CTRL-C alone or restarting the OS.
You are right. I made a wrong choice trying to switch to Linux year and half ago. Now I feel right at home with my computer loaded with copy of Windows again.
And please DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT even try to tell me about ANYTHING beginning with the letter K. Since I tried Kubuntu for some time I am K-allergic to everything with the letter K in the beginning of its name.
I K-been K-there. And I do not K-like it. It is far K-worst than GNOME.
No, it isn’t
Of course it is. You just have to use a clipboard manager as for example fedora does by default.
You ask me if I feel convinced that it is the same ? NO! I am not! And it is not the same! CTRL-C CTRL-V is easier and faster than adding the address to the “favourites”.
He wasn’t talking about adding anything to the favorites. Get a clue.
He was pointing out a very convenient way copy and past works in linux that doesn’t work in windows. Just mark something and then middle-click and that’s it, it’s been copied.
Maybe it is usual (or should I say: K-usual) K-feature for you not for me. For me clipboard should keep its content until replacing it with other content, pressing CTRL-C alone or restarting the OS.
Again, get a clue. He’s still talking about what I described above, not what, whithout any basis, you like to think.
You are right. I made a wrong choice trying to switch to Linux year and half ago. Now I feel right at home with my computer loaded with copy of Windows again.
Well, that’s fine then, isn’t it?
However, I don’t understand why you feel the need to spread FUD against linux and insult linux users on the internet instead of simply using your OS of choice an be done with it.
So you suggest that I should drop everything I learn about Debian-style system because it happened that clipboard has little more user friendly in Fedora than in Debian-style system ? No, thanks!
😉
Or you could simply install a clipboard manager of course…
Have you read this? (http://standards.freedesktop.org/clipboards-spec/clipboards-latest….)
Due to the architecture of X it makes perfect sense to have each application manage the memory for what it puts on CLIPBOARD, especially when network transport might be required to physically send the data to X. Most clipboard data never leavers the that copied it anyway.
The solution is, and has been, a clipboard management program that intelligently takes over the (extremely simple) CLIPBOARD buffer. KDE has one, which is why your problem does not happen in KDE. AFAIK there’s one for GNOME, but I’ve no idea what it’s called. The generic program for this purpose is xclipboard, which should come with X.
I don’t use any clipboard manager (because I rarely close applications) so I can’t really comment on specific usage, but I am willing to bet that you do not have one running. If you start one the problem you describe goes away. Just add one to your desktop session auto start and forget about it.
One example – clipboard.
The Linux way is that you can copy and paste stuff between apps that are still running. That you are used to the Windows way doesn’t actually make it any better or worse.
It not worse or better itself, it is far more useful. For example I have the habit to press ctrl-a ctrl-c before I click “Submit comment” here. Web page could not load, or browser could crash. And I can lose quite long worked-out text this way – English is not my native language.
It not worse or better itself, it is far more useful.
That’s an opinion, not a fact. In my case f.ex. it’s more useful that the clipboard forgets it’s contents when not needed anymore ie. when I close the app where I copied something from. I just don’t see any reason whatsoever to have something lying in memory endlessly if I have no use for it. But as I said, that’s an opinion, and it too is a feature. It has been designed that way. You just are used to the Windows way, which can be also applied to Linux/GNOME if you just install gnome-clipboard-manager.
While beeing able to agree with him on the points he found a hindrance to his desktop Linux experience, I have to vehemently disagree with the Author’s general attitude.
The reasons why Linux seems to be not mature enough on HIS desktop are not the ones why linux may not be mature enough on somebody else’s desktop.
For me, Linux (Debian 4.1) is perfect on the desktop. Having to work with a Windows machine while at work regularely makes me feel like somebody hinders me doing my work. No multiple desktops, no sane shell (cygwin is a joke on a Windows machine), no decent editor installed by default, … .
Others may be lost within the vast space of 4 desktops, or may not be willing or able to learn the power of a shell, or may not have the need for a powerful editor. For them Linux is the completely wrong system, they should get themselves an Apple or a Windows machine.
I think the EeePC provides the right way: Give the people who don’t want a sophisticated and thus complicated machine a simplified desktop with no administrative needs, and leave the door open to relatively easy system tweaking to make a fully-fledged Linux desktop out of it.
And there we come to the REAL limiting factor for wide Linux adoption on Home Desktop PCs:
Linux is usually not preinstalled on computers. Only when a truly even playing field with Windows on that front is reached, the adoption rates will rise. For that, a Website like Dell’s would need a selection field which says: “Operating systen: None/Windows XP/Windows Vista/Linux DistroXY”, available for every computer they sell. And prices which reflect the licensing costs.
//No multiple desktops, no sane shell (cygwin is a joke on a Windows machine), no decent editor installed by default//
Multiple desktops:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys….
no sane shell:
got me there, but why not just use putty to ssh to a linux server?
no decent editor installed by default:
notepad is “decent.” Not great, but decent. UltraEdit blows the hell out of vim or emacs, in my experience. But, it depends on how much effort you want to put into it.
My take: Linux for servers, Windows for desktops.
I really wish I had back the 5 minutes of my life that I wasted on that article. How amateurish rants like that find its way on the front page of news sites is beyond me.
Im thinking like this someone tell me why im wrong.
If we had 5 year release cycles like everyone else maybe they’d write drivers for us that work? Wait.. before you say we already do and list 10,000 RHEL, debian stable, etc how many people are NOT using those systems because of the ubuntu,fedoras,suses,mandrakes,etc, etc. If OSS just had a vision of two distros. say debian and rhel then let us geeks run the fedoras and ubuntus then the world would be much less stressful.
Linux needs a leader and i dont mean one guy but an organization. Think if all these OSS projects were all working on just one distro? talk about rapid development and tremendous testing. The benefits would be much greater than making a whole new distro cause you like apt-get over yum. instead make them work together (i think fedora already does this with the repo data) see what i mean if you like yum fine but dont go make a new OS, make apt-get and yum understand the same repo data! Now instead of 20,000 apps sending different bug reports you guys are still on the same distro. make yast work on this distro, make urpmi work on this distro.
I mean what are really the differences? menu’s in different places? fine allow people do move them and if they do it doesn’t break the OS and make it a new incompatible distro! I mean fedora and ubuntu are the same darn thing with a different theme (exaggeration). yet they have to to twice the work most of the time.
I’m a fedora user and i love it but id switch to Ubuntu if Fedora said hey we’re going to pull our resources into ubuntu. and id deal with ubuntu’s ugly theme or apt-get (id learn dpkg) but only if everyone including suse and mandrake, etc all decided to join too.
why can’t we do something like this. too many ego’s. every country has to have thier own distro for national pride or whatever, every programmer thinks his app should be the default whatever. Distro’s should work like the kernel. it does something and does it good or distro fusion wont accept your lame app. just like the kernel wont include some half baked module.
the kernel community seems to understand something. forks aren’t always good or nobody gets nothing done. programmers work around the kernels goals not the kernel needs to work around me. The community should adpot this line of thinking.
Like Fedora/Selinux when it came out it had a full distro policy and broke shit so instead of the selinux people saying you idiots need to be secure so im going to fork the distro the selinux guys said.. okay how about a targeted policy then, we’ll stay away from the desktop. thats a compromise. they worked to help fedora and thier project now they pull their resources.
Fedora/Ubuntu/open Suse/mandriva put your differences aside. since ubuntu is in the lead of users but fedora leads in innovation (lets not argue either) it should be one of those two.
Then have two commercial distros SuSe and Redhat since they are in the lead (im chosing two for competition). no use for debian stable cause what has been created ensures the commercial distro’s will always need the community since they base everything off the fedora/ubuntu/suse/mand consolidated community. If RedHat decided to one day close out the community they’d lose a million man dev team. It would be mutual distruction.
Its basically how fedora and redhat work now except it would be all distro’s. Redhat pays devs who contribute to the community and the community contributes devs to help the company.
This article does raise at least a few valid points. Consistency for hardware support can be a problem, especially legacy hardware. Now I know Linux is much faster on older computers using a lightweight distros…my issue is with middle aged computers. My thinkpad x24 is only about 4 years old but is now having a problem where any version of Xorg released after 7.1 causes the system to hard lock after suspend or hibernate. This occurs with any M6 series ati card…which previously worked 100% using the ati open source Xorg driver, but despite numerous bug reports from owners of various model laptops using this chip, no work has apparently been done..as work continues plowing along on the sexier radeonHD and such projects. The problem here is that my laptop and the others in question have more then enough power to run any current full distro…so having people tell me to use an older version feels crippling..also running everything in VESA mode does make the thing run like crap. I wish Linux distros would take one of the few good idea from windows and give an easier method of “Rolling back” a driver to an earlier version, without creating a dependency version disaster…that would be awesome and solve, or at least workaround the regressions problem.
Also interdistro consistency can be a major annoyance, particularly with commercial software. While many linux users (primarily those who are programmers) would disagree, there are some instances where free software at the time cannot replace commercial software. I’m currently studying at a university to be a mechanical engineer…and I’m also a big time linux user. Unfortunately….I NEED to use various commercial apps in my day to day life. Some, like SolidWorks are windows only…which is another problem altogether, but even those with Linux releases can be a nightmare. Take Matlab/Simulink for example..it comes with it’s own installer for Linux..which in most cases works fine and well. The program seems to work..unless you use Ubuntu..in which case(as of 7.04) Simulink randomly bombs out for no reason. The reason here being that the Ubuntu devs decided to place Java VM in a different path then apparently everyone else…making Simulink unable to find it without editing a text file.
Another example is Pro/Engineer CAD, which fails to run initially on most Linux distributions as it does not support UTF-8 encoding…so you need to workaround this by customizing your locale or changing the whole system out of unicode..making other programs often act crazy, unless you use RHEL which wasn’t UTF at the time Pro/E was released. In fact the new release of Pro/E no longer offers Linux versions…so I’ll have to switch to Solaris I guess, because PTC claims the cost of maintaining a reasonably compatible Linux release was too high for the market.
It could be easy to blame the ISV’s for some problems..i.e. tell PTC to better support UTF-8, but the problem is cyclic. PTC wouldn’t bother investing to completely modify Pro/E unless there was profit in it…and most clients would be hesitant, to put it lightly, to buy software that costs upwards of $10,0000 per license if they weren’t SURE it would work…and keep working in subsequent releases.
I like the previous poster’s comment about unity within Linux. Many would argue that this would take away the freedoms Linux stands for, I tend to disagree. There can always be forks and alternatives…but it would be nice if the mainstream vendors could come to some kind of consensus on standards. It is easier for an ISV to code for say, Solaris, where they can turn to Sun for support, than it is for Linux where there are countless internal factions.
I love my Linux systems…I think Linux truly is the future of the desktop OS…but it’s not there yet. If the distros could get some of their varous gripes worked out and try to cooperate…Linux could be cutting edge AND rock-solid all at once…and the unified backing would be a strong confidence booster to those interested in making third-party software, the comfort that the platform is not going to die off out of nowhere like some distros occasionally seem to do.
There’s just my two cents I guess.
I take issue at hurdle #8: off-the shelf software.
I do recognize that compatibility with proprietary file formats and protocols is a necessary evil, for the moment, but I didn’t switch to GNU/Linux so that I could run non-free software on it. Linux is about knowing that vendor lock-in is no longer an issue, that the applications you use at home for free you can also use at work for free, that everything is available at your fingertips in the repos, the full and latest version, not a crippled piece of freeware designed to trick you into paying for the usable version. It’s about avoiding the risk of backdoors, spyware and adware from freeware downloads, and viruses from pirated programs.
In short, those open source third party programs are not a band aid for the lack of “commercial” Linux software. They are an essential part of the Linux experience. As KDE’s Sebastian Kuegler put it: “Linux is just an implementation detail”.
As a EU citizen, I’d say to the European Commission: OK, suing Microsoft is fun, but if you really want to erode its monopoly, pass legislation so that every public institution, including schools and universities, are forbidden to rely on proprietary software, protocols or file formats for any purpose. Then give them a period for allegations about proprietary programs with no free alternatives, and fund the development of those programs in software engineering universities.
I agree whole heartedly with what you’ve said, but I still fail to see how a small time programmer pays the rent when all of his code is free as in beer?
If I write a small app that I know is needed in desktop linux, how do I get compensation for my time?
I mean I’m a nice guy and all and I really appreciate all the free software in linux, but I’m stuffed if I know how some of these guys make a living on it. And I also understand why better software is lacking on the platform.
Find someone willing to pay. Canonical, Novell, Redhat, IBM, Sun, Mandriva, Google and plenty of others have paid and hired people to write both open and closed source apps for Linux. Lots of companies not directly connected the software industry have released some of their in house software as Open Source, or added features to existing software and the people who wrote it got compensated for their time. Get a job with some of them.
A few of the more popular Open Source projects also bring in a bit of cash via voluntary donations, paid for support, and consultancy fees for adding specific features.
Doing something unsolicited and then expecting people to retroactively compensate you for your time is always a very risky proposition. I know a couple of shareware programmers for windows who made less than two bucks an hour on their software, so it’s hardly a linux or OSS problem.
Or simply get a day job to pay the bills and write software as a hobby because you enjoy it, that’s what a lot of people do. I probably spend as much time on my hobbies and interests as I do on my job and no one ever compensated me for my time. In fact all my hobbies have been a net loss for me, yet that’s never bothered me in the slightest.
That’s what I was getting at. Writing FOSS software should be remunerated as the valuable public service it is.
Besides, much of the reason why it’s so difficult to make money out of free software is that it’s so easy to make it from proprietary software. Suppose there were no copyright laws, so no-one could make money from selling proprietary software. People would still need and want good software, so they would find ways to reward developers for their services. Projects like Copycan (online collective bargaining for intellectual works, be it music, literature, software, whatever) would be involved in a big chunk of monetary transactions.
I have nothing against programmers, who work very hard to earn their salaries. It’s the legal IP framework that I oppose.
When a new driver module is needed, it means compiling
I was in shock and awe after reading this. Thats not to say the article doesn’t have points.
Ignoring the problems with other OS’s. GNU is rough around the edges in all kinds of ways, a complete fully functional Desktop has been a long time coming, and the bottom line is that each 3-6 months a NEWLinux+GNU tools+X+Firefox+OpenOffice+Applications comes out packaged by whatever distribution everything improves, and Millions of users enjoy it, and the trend is more are enjoying it as time goes on.
Something which is missed in this debate is that most users don’t understand windows and macos as ‘operating systems” but as desktop environments. They choose which one they like because they like the way it works – docks, desktop icons, etc.
One of the biggest problems for Linux in my opinion is that just about all ‘desktops’ and all distributions try to be just about all things to all people. If you want a dock on gnome install one, if you want desktop icon on enlightenment then this option is now available.
No version of linux seems able to forward a very coherent philosophy or identity that isn’t subsequently muddied by the (admittedly great) choice that available. Potential users just cannot grab onto a reason why linux as a desktop environment is cool.
Well what ever the pros and cons on other issues the author is right about usability and regression. Everytime I have tried Ubuntu there has been some bug or other whether with syncing with my Palm device, sound, or more usually network cards. Network bugs seem to be part of the Ubuntu culture and experience. I have a bug with my current card that has lasted over three releases. Why does no one fix these things!
The process of trying to identify, hack or fix these bugs via the Linux terminal, complicated by sudo, is excruciating! Sorry guys it does not ‘just work’ like it is supposed to!
I’m a bit tired of the continuing controversy over Linux popularity and why it isn’t more popular. As far as I can see Linux is doing quite well already, and it is even gaining more popularity fast too. So what’s the problem? Does Linux really need to become the most popular OS in the world as soon as possible? Why should it?
If becoming popular means compromising over traditional Linux benefits like flexibility and security, I’d rather see Linux staying less popular.
You may call that elitism, but I don’t see why volume, popularity, money and such quantitative things should be priorized so much (although, of course they matter too). Personally I’d always like to to prefer quality over quantity, even if that would mean less popularity, and a degree of elitism.
In my humble opinion it is much better to be known as an ultra secure and ultra flexible high quality OS used by experts than to be known as a lame dumbed down buggy OS full of security holes used by ignorant masses. Educating the masses may often be the right way to gain more popularity instead of hasty decisions that might mean compromising quality.
As a regular desktop user (not beginner, yet not expert) I don’t agree with this guy and don’t think it’s necessarily a more unique perspective than those offered before.
Hurdle 1 Consistency & Perception. I find the GNOME desktop to be neat, nice looking (esp. with the Fedora Nodoka theme) organized and more or less consistent, as is my hardware support from one release to the next.
Hurdle 2 Mobile device support is a joke. My Nokia N800 (which I use for the most part as an mp3 player because the device can’t access my school’s wifi vpn) usually syncs nicely with the songs I have on my computer through Rhythmbox. I don’t know anyone who goes out and buys a Windows Mobile device and expect it to work seamlessly with a Linux computer. Devices like the N800 by themselves stand up on their own feet in terms of what mobile Linux can do.
Hurdle 3: Finding compatible software when switching OSes is difficult. I’m not someone who needs specialized software (I’m only a student) but OpenOffice has served as a wonderful replacement for MS Office (which while good, I can’t afford). I can send and receive homework assignments and class outlines without a glitch and the web browsing IE did is handled well by Firefox/Swiftfox and Opera.
Hurdle 4: Wireless is a mess. Not really an issue here, though may be with others.
Hurdle 5: Hardware compatibility lists. I only have a camera and printer, so no big issues here.
Hurdle 6: When a new driver module is needed, it means compiling. Nope, no issue here on that either.
Hurdle 7: Serious commercial interest. Yup, this one I’ll contend is a big one. I made sure I wrote Amazon a thank you note for making their mp3 store widely available since I don’t have access to iTunes. It’s an insignificant gesture, but I find it best to show gratitude and support whenever someone pays attention or makes an effort to reach out to Linux users.
Hurdle 8: Off-the-shelf software. This is a big one when it comes to games, so even though I’m not a gamer, I’ll agree on this one too.
Hurdle 9: Workarounds vs. fixing the bugs. I’m not a highly technical user so I’ll leave that one up for grabs.
Hurdle 10: Apologists and purists. I sound like one here, but use whatever OS you like. I still believe that Linux is ready for the basic Word document writing, picturing uploading, and web surfing kind of guy like me.