Note: This is an Op-Ed piece for discussion. No intention to hurt anyones' feeling, nor am I looking to get flamed. Just want to chat...
I have been using linux mostly for 15 years and solely for about 11. I'd categorize myself as a well-experienced and adept user - not a developer or professional. I've managed to grow from someone who knows just enough to be dangerous to not being dangerous any longer. A significant hurdle, I think.
I've waded through many distros. For my daily use; Mandrake morphed into Mandriva, which led to PCLinuxOS, which I had to leave behind because of lack of growth. Used a few others off and on, openSUSE was too windows like for me and I never did get their repository things figured out correctly. Four different repos for multimedia codecs - some of which aren't compatible with others? Gimme a break. Now I'm using Kubuntu and I think it's great. The backing of a large commercial enterprise, large public community, and huge software base. Apt-get and the repos: great. Kpackage kit not-so-much, but that's a KDE issue not Canonical.
Moving toward the point: Why doesn't linux bust M$ to pieces and take the desktop world by storm? We all know lots of reasons: M$ should be called MarketingSoft, congressional lobbyists and back-room sweetheart deals, illegal and unfair business practices, blah blah blah. What about the windows users: Change is scary, free can't be good, my $10 webcam won't work with linux so I spent $400 on a Windows OS and anti-virus and other software, blah blah blah.
I REAL problem is the nature of linux itself. Hacker's and openness and "I don't like your distro so I'll make my own" and so on. Me? I love that. That's what makes linux great. What makes linux suck? Almost NO hardware vendor support, very little in the way of awesome cool and wicked games and (at least for the common computer user) no consistency in the OS itself. OpenSUSE does it one way, Ubuntu another, Mandriva a third, Gentoo and so on ad infnitum. This creates a very large learning curve with a smaller payoff than windows. THAT'S why linux is not the most used OS. OK - money drives everything and no one has come up with a great way to make boat loads of cash with linux, but I still believe if you build a better product, the people will come.
So what the solution? Remember I'm not a professional. What would make the linux experience better to the point where I could translate it to others users without regard to their skill level and have them say bye-bye to the M$ chains?
A solid, uniform, core system. The kernel and it's hardware support - stable, tested, supported by vendors, used by all distros. Every distro uses the same core. Then all users hardware works regardless of your distro choice. When you have something exotic that only you can get working...lo and behold, your needed edits work in the same place and in the same way for every distro. This also could/would/should lead to more awesome-wicked games and such. Like it or not; solitaire and firefox are not selling OS's or the latest and greatest CPU. Call of Duty, Flight Sim, (I'm too old to name the latest and greatest...lol) are.
More hand holding of the users. I hear your collective groan, me too. Let's face it, not everyone wants to know why this thingy works or how it does. "When I plugged it in, a window popped up, I answered a few questions and I was good to go!" I don't want to take away users level control or OS transparency - just make baby-talk available for those who want it.
Then whats left for the packagers? User space is still wildly variable. Desktop managers and their associated tools still leave lots of room for growth and so on. Lots of choice in the desktop/window manager area; KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, all the lightweight choices - more in the future no doubt.
I think some of what I'd like to see is happening from both directions. Linux is getting more and more user friendly at the base line and windows is getting more stable.
I just want it all dammit!
I have been using linux mostly for 15 years and solely for about 11. I'd categorize myself as a well-experienced and adept user - not a developer or professional. I've managed to grow from someone who knows just enough to be dangerous to not being dangerous any longer. A significant hurdle, I think.
I've waded through many distros. For my daily use; Mandrake morphed into Mandriva, which led to PCLinuxOS, which I had to leave behind because of lack of growth. Used a few others off and on, openSUSE was too windows like for me and I never did get their repository things figured out correctly. Four different repos for multimedia codecs - some of which aren't compatible with others? Gimme a break. Now I'm using Kubuntu and I think it's great. The backing of a large commercial enterprise, large public community, and huge software base. Apt-get and the repos: great. Kpackage kit not-so-much, but that's a KDE issue not Canonical.
Moving toward the point: Why doesn't linux bust M$ to pieces and take the desktop world by storm? We all know lots of reasons: M$ should be called MarketingSoft, congressional lobbyists and back-room sweetheart deals, illegal and unfair business practices, blah blah blah. What about the windows users: Change is scary, free can't be good, my $10 webcam won't work with linux so I spent $400 on a Windows OS and anti-virus and other software, blah blah blah.
I REAL problem is the nature of linux itself. Hacker's and openness and "I don't like your distro so I'll make my own" and so on. Me? I love that. That's what makes linux great. What makes linux suck? Almost NO hardware vendor support, very little in the way of awesome cool and wicked games and (at least for the common computer user) no consistency in the OS itself. OpenSUSE does it one way, Ubuntu another, Mandriva a third, Gentoo and so on ad infnitum. This creates a very large learning curve with a smaller payoff than windows. THAT'S why linux is not the most used OS. OK - money drives everything and no one has come up with a great way to make boat loads of cash with linux, but I still believe if you build a better product, the people will come.
So what the solution? Remember I'm not a professional. What would make the linux experience better to the point where I could translate it to others users without regard to their skill level and have them say bye-bye to the M$ chains?
A solid, uniform, core system. The kernel and it's hardware support - stable, tested, supported by vendors, used by all distros. Every distro uses the same core. Then all users hardware works regardless of your distro choice. When you have something exotic that only you can get working...lo and behold, your needed edits work in the same place and in the same way for every distro. This also could/would/should lead to more awesome-wicked games and such. Like it or not; solitaire and firefox are not selling OS's or the latest and greatest CPU. Call of Duty, Flight Sim, (I'm too old to name the latest and greatest...lol) are.
More hand holding of the users. I hear your collective groan, me too. Let's face it, not everyone wants to know why this thingy works or how it does. "When I plugged it in, a window popped up, I answered a few questions and I was good to go!" I don't want to take away users level control or OS transparency - just make baby-talk available for those who want it.
Then whats left for the packagers? User space is still wildly variable. Desktop managers and their associated tools still leave lots of room for growth and so on. Lots of choice in the desktop/window manager area; KDE, Gnome, Enlightenment, all the lightweight choices - more in the future no doubt.
I think some of what I'd like to see is happening from both directions. Linux is getting more and more user friendly at the base line and windows is getting more stable.
I just want it all dammit!
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