Posted on 03/17/2009 7:16:55 AM PDT by N3WBI3
Nobody questions whether Mac OS X is ready for the desktop. Never mind that switching to it involves learning different assumptions and tools and a new desktop. It has a reputation for being user-friendly, and is backed by a proprietary company, just like Windows.
With GNU/Linux, however, the story is different. For over a decade, columnists and bloggers have been explaining how GNU/Linux isn't ready for the desktop -- and, despite all the progress in the operating system over the last ten years, the arguments haven't changed much. Moreover, increasingly, they're outdated when they're not based on complete ignorance. In fact, I often get the impression that those who pontificate on GNU/Linux's inadequacies have never tried it.
Often, of course, the criterion for desktop-readiness is subjective. What is a bug to one user is a feature to another: for example, having to log in as root to install software is an inconvenience to inexperienced users, but a security feature to those with more knowledge.
Often, too, complaints about GNU/Linux are actually complaints that it is not exactly like Windows. Never mind the fact that, unless it did things differently, there would be no reason to switch in the first place. Or that anyone who expects to use a new application or operating system without a learning period is arrogantly provincial. The fact that GNU/Linux is not completely familiar is more than enough to damn it in the eyes of some critics.
Then there are arguments that involve a rubber ruler. That's where someone claims that GNU/Linux will never be ready until it has a certain feature, then, when the feature is pointed out or developed, changes directions and insists that another feature is essential. You can never win against such arguments, because the criteria for judging them keeps changing.
However, in addition to all these arguments are the ones that invalidate themselves primarily because of error, incompleteness, or misrepresentation. These are nine of the most common factually incorrect ones:
1) Distros are too forked for easy compatibility for developers
This claim is popular among software vendors explaining why they don't make versions of their products for the operating system. It is based on the fact that all distributions do not follow efforts at consistency like the Linux Standards Base, and often put files in different locations. In addition, distributions use a variety of package systems, so that widespread support can mean building packages in several different formats.
These problems are real, but the claim exaggerates the difficulties they create. Universal installers like InstallBuilder and Install Anywhere offer vendors installers that are similar to those on Windows. As for building several different packages, if community projects have no trouble doing so, why should a software company?
But, really, the largest problem with this claim is that it attempts to impose the Windows way of doing things on an existing system. In GNU/Linux, the creators of an application don't support different distributions or packaging formats -- the distribution does.
This system works because, with free software, the distribution can make whatever changes it needs to make the software run. It is only a problem for proprietary vendors. If they aren't willing to work with the system and release their code as free software, that is their choice -- but then they shouldn't complain that the system isn't set up for them.
2) No migration tools exist
True, GNU/Linux might benefit from a wizard that would import e-mail, browser bookmarks, IRC channels and other personal information from Windows. But the same could be said of Windows. At least GNU/Linux co-exists with other operating systems and can read their formatted partitions so that you can manually migrate some of this information.
3) There's no hardware support
In the past, hardware support for GNU/Linux was spotty. More often than not, it existed because of efforts by the community, not the manufacturer, and its early stages were incomplete.
However, in the last three or four years, community drivers have matured, and more manufacturers are releasing GNU/Linux drivers along with Windows and Mac drivers. The manufacturers' drivers are not always free software, but they are free for the download.
Today, cases of incompatibility for basics such as hard drives, keyboards, and ethernet cards still occur, but are rare. The problem areas are likely to be peripheral areas like scanners, printers, modems, and wireless cards. However, you can hedge your bets by a few tactics such as choosing a postscript printer, which always works with the generic postscript driver, or buying from companies like Hewlett-Packard, which has a long history of supporting GNU/Linux printing.
Some people even maintain that, because GNU/Linux generally retains backwards compatibility, it actually supports more hardware than Windows. I wouldn't quite go that far, but, on the whole, driver problems on GNU/Linux seem only slightly more common than the ones I used to find on various versions of Windows.
Today, too, you can sidestep hardware compatibility entirely by buying GNU/Linux pre-installed from companies such as Acer or Dell.
LOL! No worries.
Agreed
I have a problem with Bluetooh, a IOGear USB dongle. I’m running up to date Bluez, but the problem is with the dongle; the chipset is “Broadcom”, who are notorious for not even releasing the documentation for the *Nix guys to write a driver for, forcing reverse engineering to get a workable driver. If they had listed the chipset vendor on the box (it was a spur of the moment purchase), I would not have bought it.
One the market is not static, it is growing, so 3% today is still more seats than 3% years ago. Two, no multi-billion dollar company behind it, with sweetheart deals(lock-in) with HW vendors, and no Madison Ave. marketing firms with multi-million dollar ad budgets hawking the wares.
Still, Linux is gaining in exposure. vista helped, and it's made inroads into schools now. Given the economic downturn, IT departments will be reexamining costs and licensing deals.
You may think Linux is a non threat, but if you've been paying attention, you know that M$ doesn't.
“Its also not needed on modern desktops which use either RPM or APT.. In Fedora for example if you download an RPM a box pops up that says ‘would you like to install’ you click yes, it ask for the admin password, and the installs..”
Assuming you have RPM and Fedora. I don’t. I have Ubuntu. The stock installation of Ubuntu doesn’t have RPM or Alien (and who the hell knows what Alien is anyway). Today, when I was trying to install drivers for my Dell 1020C printer (I think that’s the number), I had to download RPM and alien and then had to manually install the drivers. Normal humans give up long before I get frustrated.
I may have APT, but I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is or when I might need it. When was the last time Windows came without an unzip program? That’s about where the user friendliness of Linux is stuck right now.
By the way... I had to download a Xerox/Fuji driver for my Dell printer and I still can’t get the driver to recognize the paper tray. I can now feed single sheets. That, of course, is a vast improvement over saving files on a thumb drive and printing with my Mac or my PC’s, but it isn’t yet right.
And another thing while I’m griping... Why do all Linux instructions assume I know where to install drivers? I can often figure it out, but normal humans don’t know what a directory is. The whole idea of cd usr/root/fu/bar/model is not included in most brains.
I ran into a similar problem when I got a Vista machine. I foolishly expected it to run software that would run on an XP. If I had it to do over again, I'd have bought the Linux machine, and saved a few bucks for a similar level of incompatability.
The people that push, it treat it like a political/religious movement.
Just read through the entire thread up to the point of this post.
Wow! Are you right! Man! What a bunch of intolerant pro-linux bigots!
Jeez, I've never seen such vicousness... Bunch of extremists, these guys are.
I may have APT, but I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is or when I might need it.
You use Ubuntu and don't know whether you have apt, or what it is? That is actually a bit amazing. Apt is the front-end to dpkg, which is the standard Debian package management system. These are what are used to install deb files, which are the binary packages used on Debian and Debian based systems like Ubuntu. Most commonly people would use synaptic, a gui app, or aptitude, a console app, to maintain the various applications that they have installed on their system.
The people that push, it treat it like a political/religious movement.
Are you sure you're not thinking of Mac users?
The lack of viruses for Linux has little to do with any sort of alleged innate security or the competence of its user base. Trust me, with a little social engineering it’s just as easy to get a single-user sysadmin to install an infected package as it is to get a Windows user to install an infected MSI.
That's not a virus, that's tricking a human to run a trojan. One can trick an old lady into giving up her ATM card and pin, and the location of her purse. That's doesn't make the security of a bank equivalent to her purse.
However, desktop Linux is such a tiny part of the marketplace today that it’s not worth it from a virus writer’s perspective to waste time on a Linux variant of some trojan. This is especially true if you’re writing a worm distributed via email; yes, you *can* write an OpenOffice worm, but why bother with all that effort when it’ll only pwn a tiny handful of boxes? In fact, the *density* of targets is so low that you can’t even achieve reliable viral transmission; even if you succeed in getting your virus onto one Linux box, the likelihood of it successfully *finding* another Linux box to spread to is very, very low.
Oh, right, you don't know about BlackICE Defender. BlackICE was a nifty little personal firewall built to fend of script kiddies back before such things were common. I myself ran it, but it had virtually no awareness in the general computer using public. Yet in 2004 someone still went to the trouble to write a worm that only infected systems running that software, estimated to be about 10,000-12,000 worldwide.
In fact, the *density* of targets is so low that you can’t even achieve reliable viral transmission; even if you succeed in getting your virus onto one Linux box, the likelihood of it successfully *finding* another Linux box to spread to is very, very low.
The aformentioned worm infected virtually all 12,000 hosts worldwide in less than one hour.
10,000-12,000. By way of comparison, the number of Linux desktops in the elementary and secondary schools in Brazil alone exceed 20,000. The French Parliment is using Linux on its desktops, (Yeah, France, I know...) Amazon.com uses Linux on its desktops. Novell is unsurprisingly running Linux on their desktops. And thats just some desktop numbers.
According to Netcraft, Linux is the OS running on four out of ten of the most reliable Internet hosting companies (incidentally BSD, another free Unix like OS with four of the ten has been making significant gains recently... Windows server is one of the ten) Google's servers run Linux. Amazon.com runs Linux, the servers that host Freerepublic.com run Linux.
People that say Market share and therefore "worth" to the virus is the reason that vulnerabilities in Linux aren't widespread are only demonstrating a fundamental lack of knowledge of the number of internet facing Linux servers that would reap the malware writer rewards several orders of magnitude greater than Windows desktops if they could only be exploited.
So the only reason there isn't a worm or two running around pantsing Linux is that NOBODY has even tried to write one?
“You use Ubuntu and don’t know whether you have apt, or what it is? That is actually a bit amazing. Apt is the front-end to dpkg, which is the standard Debian package management system. These are what are used to install deb files, which are the binary packages used on Debian and Debian based systems like Ubuntu”
You have just pointed out exactly why Linux is not a viable desktop for most people. The average user won’t understand:
front-end
dpkg
Debian
deb files
binary packages
FAIL
I’m not familiar with Vista at all.
It's XP with less functionality but more glitz. They say Windows 7 with be better than Vista, but the question remains as to whether it will be better than XP.
Are you an abnormal human being?
I know what it is, I’m just not familiar with it, as in used it.
YOU are the reason more folks aren't running Linux.
You have just pointed out exactly why Linux is not a viable desktop for most people. The average user won’t understand:
front-end
dpkg
Debian
deb files
binary packages
FAIL
The average user doesn't need to know that Synaptic is a front end to dpkg any more than they need to know that Internet Explorer uses winsock.dll. Nor does their lack of "understanding" of a binary package mean that they use it any more or less on Linux than on Windows. The poster was just volunteering a little knowledge for its own sake to a user that is presumably using Synaptic without issue. For that he "FAILs"?
Wow. You're right, with standards like that, any OS is doomed to "FAILure"
They both are somewhat similar, but Mac fanatics dont take it to the extremes that I’ve seen from some Linux folks, like tossing eggs at MS people giving a speech or protesting outside Microsoft events.
“The poster was just volunteering a little knowledge for its own sake to a user that is presumably using Synaptic without issue. “
Incorrect. The poster was volunteering a little knowledge to a user that had to use the command line interpreter twice today to install a printer driver.
I shouldn’t have to know any of that stuff. If this was an isolated occurrence I wouldn’t have mentioned it. I cannot remember the last time I had to use the command line for anything in XP or Win2000. I know I have never needed it for any of my Macs.
For the average computer user, this means Linux fails to be a viable desktop operating system for them. The point of the article was that it’s a myth that Linux isn’t easy to use. The article is wrong. Every Linux box I have built has required me to run the command line interpreter from time to time, starting with Red Hat several years ago and including Fedora Core and now Ubuntu. The shells are getting better, but they aren’t good enough.
As always, I appreciate the help that I shouldn’t need.
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