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Linux, to be (Like Microsoft) or Not to be?
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Mar 13, 2006 02:29 PM
from the that-is-the-question dept.
from the that-is-the-question dept.
David writes "Stephen Shipman delivers a very articulate and concise view of how Linux fits in server and end user environments. He expresses his view in response to Nicolas Petreley's 'rant' in Linux Journal. He points out the subtle implications of efficiency versus consistency." From the article: "[...] efficiency (as measured by keystrokes) isn't the only metric for ease of use. Consistency must also be taken into account. Microsoft has made a lot of hay (and green) by flogging consistency".
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Ballmer Won't Dismiss Idea of Suits Against Linux 644 comments
An anonymous reader writes "According to an interview with Steve Ballmer in Forbes, Microsoft is open to the possibility of filing patent suits against Linux in the interest of their shareholders. Ballmer said: 'Well, I think there are experts who claim Linux violates our intellectual property. I'm not going to comment. But to the degree that that's the case, of course we owe it to our shareholders to have a strategy.' Microsoft filed more than 3000 new applications for software patents in 2005 and already owns more than 4000 patents, including many patents on fundamental, but trivial technologies, like double clicks."
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Petreley makes good points (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft doesn't get it. There are things in Windows XP which are still as idiotic as ever. This isn't evidence of a superiour product, but the result of understanding. The Registry is once again a completely backwards way of contending with things, and worse, you sometimes have to get into the Registry to change things which should be straight-forward options in personalising your computer.
Then there's the Single User aspect, all over again. No matter how they pass XP off as a multi-user environment, it carriest considerable baggage of being single user - case in point: the pop-up key-stealer, when apps suddenly thrust themselves forward and steal a keystroke for the [ignore] [retry] [cancel] [OK] whatever prompt and vanish if it meets the input expectation.
What I repeatedly hear from Mac enthusiasts is how quickly a new user can sit down and get right to business, without thinking half as hard where things are or how settings work. Microsoft made a big deal out of bringing a tonne of people on board to advise them and examine their user interfaces, but I grow increasingly skeptical that these were actually people flown to a nice resort, given fine amenities and still shown what Microsoft thought they should see, rather than simply gaining some real inside, i.e. "so what's the thing you most dislike about Windows/Office/Etc.?" Rather like a homeless guy will be your best friend if you give him a few bucks.
Consistency must also be taken into account. Microsoft has made a lot of hay (and green) by flogging consistency".
They also have become extremely overconfident because success came too easily. Note many of their recent failures. And may I be among the first of many to recognise Origami as an utter flop. Looks neat, but it's a niche player, same as Tablet Computers. It's too big and too small at the same time. Once again a complete misunderstanding of the market.
Linux should strive to be efficient and easy to use, not mugging one of the most inexplicably frustrating environments ever.
Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Insightful)
Best UI improvement I've ever seen in the computer industry. I can start something, then keep working away on whatever I was doing before I started it, and when I'm ready, the program I started is up and running behind whatever I'm currently working on.
Having said that, it's not so simple as "everything starts in the background". It depends on whether the program has any open windows already, and what layer they're at, whether the program was started by another program or the Gnome menu, and a whole bunch of other crap. The way it's done though, seems to be very good.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:4, Insightful)
The what? I vaguely recall that being a problem in Win98, but I run Win2k here, and when an inactive application demands input, it stays right down in the taskbar where it belongs - all that happens is that the taskbar icon flashes to notify me. Surely this is the case in WinXP too? It would seem strange for Microsoft to introduce the correct behaviour in one version of Windows, only to take it out again in the next.
What I repeatedly hear from Mac enthusiasts is how quickly a new user can sit down and get right to business, without thinking half as hard where things are or how settings work.
And that's total bullshit. OS X is arguably easier to learn for someone who's new to computers altogether, but anyone who has only ever used Windows before, faced with a Mac, is going to have a terribly frustrating time just trying to resize a window ("I click on the left edge and drag, to make it wider, and the window moves instead! What's with that?"), let alone figuring out how on earth the Dock is supposed to work.
What it comes down to is, people like what they're used to. That means Mac users love Macs, Windows users say they hate Windows but hate trying other platforms even more, and Linux users can't figure out how anyone can find Linux difficult to use. Which is why it is sensible for Linux to behave more like Windows (KDE), or more like OS X (Gnome) - because with greater familiarity will come greater uptake.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Insightful)
Compare, say, setting up apache on a typical Linux distribution with configuring IIS on Windows. The difference is night and day. Sure, sometimes you have to dig into the Machine.conf or use a command line tool like httpcfg, but these are rarities, rather than the common case. Also, while there are some GUI configuration tools for apache from various sources, all of them suck rocks through a straw to the point that it's EASIER to look up arcane flags and configuration settings and type them into a text editor than it is to click a button. Typically, it's just a graphical representation of the config file.
OSX and Windows do a damn good job of making the common stuff easy to configure and use with a nice GUI. On Linux, what config applet you use may depend on which environment you're using. KDE and Gnome both have different stuff, as does SUSE, Red Hat, etc.. consistency may be better (not great, but better) within one particular distro, but not across even two similar ones.
This is a hot button, though. Lots of people will disagree, because whatever they're doing works for them. it's that kind of myopic outlook ("it works for me, you must be too stupid") that makes it so difficult for Linux to gain acceptance. It doesn't have to "work for you", it has to "work for THEM", and if it works for you too, then that's even better.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't give a damn if anybody else but me uses Linux, ever.
It doesn't have to "work for you", it has to "work for THEM",
No, it doesn't have to do anything. If it works for me, it's good for me, and if it doesn't work for them, they can go find something that does.
and if it works for you too, then that's even better.
Why would we be having a problem if there was a one-size-fits-all solution? I know for a fact that 90% of users out there would die screaming if they had to deal with my machine the way I have it set up - but it's how I like it. See above argument. Since when did Linux stop being about choice and start being about grouping everybody into yet another bunch of Borgs? I made my choice. It's Linux. Others made their choice. It's Windows. So be it. I don't crack into Microsoft's code base and rebuild the MS system to be exactly like Linux. I don't see where a bunch of Windows zeolots have any more right to piss in my Linux so it tastes better to them and ruins it for me.
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What's a "single user" problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of all the things you could propose as a reason for considering it "single user", that's the oddest. It's hateful and frustrating, and more prevalent in MS WIndows than X11 or Mac OS, but it's more prevalent in X11 than Mac OS, and more prevalent in Mac OS than 8 1/2.
You could have pointed to the single-application-instance shared with Mac OS (which Firefox has imported to X11). Whether it's services, desktop applications, or just logged in users, it takes a huge effort to have two instances of ANYTHING running in Windows.
Their virtual terminal and user switching required years of development work from Citrix, Xerox, Metaframe, and other companies to figure out what parts of the user environment should be shared, what should be duplicated, and what should be switched from instance to instance... and you still can't have two login sessions under the same user id.
For applications that run as services there's been even less work done to get around the problems... so it's actually more cost effective to build "blade" servers or run multiple copies of the OS in virtual machines than to run multiple webservers or other applications in the same instance of Windows.
I mean, I had a 486/50... this is a machine that wasn't powerful enough to run one instance of even NT 3.51... and I was running multiple webservers on different addresses under the same kernel. This kind of thing is routine and easy in UNIX, because it was designed for multiple users (and thus multiple instances of every possible resource) from the very start.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Interesting)
It was years ago that I bought into every shiny new wizzy tech that came along. It took years to wear away my blind otimism that new==better. After spending a good amount of my own money and many long hours fighting with things to make them do what I needed experience etched it's way into my assessment of new, wizzy tech. I don't mean to come across as cocky or smug, but I think I've got to the point where I can take a look at something and determine if it's going to be useful and easy to use, or another exasperating time fighting with it to do what I need, not what the designers thought i should have.
One of the reasons I like being a programmer is writing my own tools. There are tools which will kinda-sorta do the things I need, but often more or less and not quite what I had in mind.
I look at Origami and see effectively a big Palm Pilot or smaller version of a Tablet Computer. It will no doubt be popular with anyone a laptop, tablet or Palm/PocketPC doesn't quite work for. On the last few flights I've been on and the last few conferences I've attended I have seen zero Tablets and few, if any, PDA size tools. Everyone hauls around a laptop. I think that's a pretty clear indicator of what the general population is drawn to. Origami is simply Microsofts misguided way of telling people, We know what you really need, despite many tools like this over the years which have vanished. Maybe UPS and FedEx will adopt them, but what they use looks like it could be run over by a truck and still function.
I don't think it's healthy to pattern user functionality on the designs of a company which is trying to expand into everyone elses market, instead of cleaning up their own back yard.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Informative)
No. XP is 4 1/2 years old.
XP SP2 is a year and half old. And I still can't do lots of things (like full use of a USB thumb drive) using a non-priviliged account (not to mention that the default install on my Microsoft-partnered laptop came with the user accounts having full admin priviliges)
Your 'Vista will fix it' argument is quite frankly, the same thing I've heard about XP SP2, Win2k, NT4, & NT 3.5. It wasn't true for those operating systems and I doubt it will be true for vista.
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Re:Petreley makes good points (Score:5, Insightful)
No it's not. MS will never make a multi user OS. MS wants one user only per copy of windows. They don't like multi user systems. They don't like thin client systems either. (yes, MS sells a terminal server. They had to get into that cause some businesses wanted to go that route. But they're still doing their best to implant the single user mentality to average users. Their mainstream OS has no such capabilities. Plus, MS terminal server is a joke as you pay both for the server and per user. So all cost benefits are negated)
God forbid if people find out what multiuser systems really do. Imagine that! Joe Sixpack would start wondering why he needs a copy of windows for each member of his family. Or maybe he'd go wild and just use dumb terminals to connect to the main computer. (for the uninitiated: dumb terminal doesn't mean 'command line'- you can have your desktop as you know it, running super fast on a cheap and light machine, like a pII-200MHz 32mb)
MS threw dust in your eyes, pretending they have a multiuser OS, just so they don't get behind in the catchwords race. Before you say "but i can have more than one user on my windows machine", can multiple users use the pc at the same time? Try it. Login to your account, then create another user on that machine. Now try to login remotelly with the new user, while you're still logged in with your previous username. Windows will throw a popup, warning you, that another user is logged in and if you continue that user will be logged out. There can only be one!
And ofcourse, even if MS changes tomorrow and decides to go multi user, there is a single-user culture in windows, that's difficult, if not impossible to change. ie. most windows apps would not work.
Parent
Flogging consistency? (Score:4, Funny)
Seriously, Microsoft. You'll eventually go blind.
FOSS Means Business, in Belfast, March 16th (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a conference this Thursday, March 16th in Belfast called FOSS Means Business [foss-means-business.org] where Stallman and Perens are both doing business-orientated lectures, plus presentations by Google, Open Source Academy, and Oracle.
People trying to encourage IT decision makers to transition to free software have to learn to explain it. Bruce Perens is good at this, but as well as telling people about the value of free software, we have to tell them how to hang on to it - how to not let it slip through their fingers. That's Stallman's angle, as can be read in this transcript of his lecture on GPLv3 [www.ifso.ie].
Microsoft isn't top because of their software quality, and free software won't displace them purely based on quality either. We'll win for other reasons.
Yes, it's all true, and it's BIG (Score:4, Interesting)
The above should be flagged "sarcastic" for those who happen to lack such a barometer internally
No, it's true actually. A lot of businesses in Northern Ireland were poking at free software but no one wants to be first, so we're organising a big free software conference aimed at businesses. Stallman's name is a big draw. He knows it's a business audience and he'll adapt to that. He'll be including a substantial section about GPLv3 [fsfeurope.org], which has gotten a surprising level of interest from public administration bodies.
Interest has been huge and there were many requests for speaking slots that had to be turned down. I guess there will be a FOSS Means Business 2007 too, but one at a time. On Thursday we expect at least 300. The venue can hold up to 1150.
I think events like these, and the networking that happens at them, is more important than increasing efficiency of the software. We'll see.
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They may have "flogged" consistency, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
anything else about Windows' operating environment:
- Printing that doesn't work the same from Windows 95/98/Me to NT/2000/XP because of different
driver rules at the GDI layer.
- API's that change from one ruleset to the next without warning (the move from 16-bit to 32-bit
generated at least several API calls that produced nasty results because they used zero as the
default but in the 32-bit version they used a string for that parameter and they didn't account
for this in the API...)
- Consumer WinCE devices being allowed out the door with missing functionalities (i.e. The Uniden
UniPro 100 PDA was missing the Finder and a few other things- for no good reasons other than they
were short on firmware memory because of the added recording functionalities- and instead of
increasing the BOM costs slightly for more ROM capacity, they opted to omit some of the functionalities
that make it consistent with the other WinCE devices.)
- Apps don't have any consistent install/uninstall interface. (While Linux IS better in this regard,
it's got many of the same problems...).
- Apps often install their own DLLs to prevent being hosed by other apps and Microsoft when they do
updates.
There's tons more. "Windows" only seems consistent because the end-user community sees something that
"works like Windows" and is therefore familiar- since it's familiar, they whitewash over all the
issues about consistency and it "being easier to use". Issues that plague them day in, day out.
Microsoft may talk the talk, but when the rubber meets the pavement, they're not walking the walk- not even close.
Re:They may have "flogged" consistency, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funnily enough the model you are describing works fine on guess what... Gentoo and BSDs. Portage. I personally dislike it, but that is a matter of taste.
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Re:They may have "flogged" consistency, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
And your description here indicates that you understand neither the Windows nor the *nix way of doing things.
Windows: What if one of those windows applications also installs a service that's running on your box? What's going to happen when you delete "Program Files\App Name"? What about all those registry entries? What about the entry in "Add/Remove Programs"? What about dependencies? To me, this is why users shouldn't be deleting program files, and part of the reason why windows asks, "Hey, this is an executable. You really, really, REEEEEAAAAALLLY sure you want to delete it?"
Unzipping AppName.zip into a new directory in Program Files, then later removing the whole directory is quick, easy and clean.
I've never seen this done. Ever. And I wouldn't want it this way. I kinda like having stuff accessible in my Start menu. This is why installers exist - the presence of a piece of software on a system goes beyond just the executable(s) and data files. Software has to be installed into the target system. An engine that sits in the bed of a pickup truck isn't installed, and isn't going to be very useful for moving the truck around.
Linux: Did you install from source? If so, did the source installation come from a ports tree [wikipedia.org] or similar? If so, it created an entry in the package database, which keeps track of how to uninstall the software. If you installed bare source outside of a ports tree, then you're responsible for either:
- Keeping the source code around, so you can do a 'make uninstall'
- Keeping track of what files were added/removed/modified manually.
In either case, you're a proficient enough user to understand how to build from source, you should be able to understand how to administer a system with software built-from-source. Talking about binary packages after all this is a moot point - you use the package manager to uninstall the package. Why would you uninstall something using a different tool than you used when you installed it?or
As a for-instance, my desktop system has approximately 380 packages installed. I don't want to scour the unix manpages, makefiles, or anything else (e.g. if I was running windows, the registry) to figure out how to uninstall a program, even though I'm a comptetent, experienced system administrator on Windows, Linux, and a few Unixes. The package management tools on Windows and *nix make it possible to feasibly maintain systems with hundreds (or even thousands, if need be) of software packages installed. In your example, you think uninstalling means deleting the executables and data files. In both cases, you're missing the point - uninstalling an application should be done through an appropriate tool. When you ask the question, "How do I uninstall a program?" for a common user, the answer always is:
- For windows, it's control panel\add/remove programs
- For *nix, it's the standard system administration tool you've always used for everything else.
Don't go mucking around deleting files. This isn't a Linux-only idea.Confusing and frustrating in my opinion.
What's confusing/frustrating about double-clicking on a package (.exe,
Parent
How can you critique this? (Score:5, Insightful)
None of which of course applies in the server domains, where you're better off with less UI. Wildly divergent configuration files are bad, but not as bad as wildly divergent GUIs.
Consistency to what degree? (Score:4, Informative)
Linux distro developers might want to explore voluntary standards for certain types of configurations. Maybe something like configuration assumptions for desktops v servers. Like that commercial with the Easy button? Maybe we have an "easy" configuration for desktop distros that tucks more the inner workings out of sight. But if you take away the inconsistency in the Linux environment, you may be undermining one of its most important strengths.
Consistancy is important. (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, plenty of Windows users will be quite happy by going to "file" to print or close an application. "Find" is under edit, not view. That's fine for people who think that way and for them it SHOULD be that way. The rest of the userbase shouldn't have to suffer for it, though.
Myself, I like visuals. The idea of dragging an application window to a printer, OR dragging the printer to the application windows, appeals to me. (To me, drag&drop needs to work by object, not by destination.)
"But writing all those interfaces would be massively overwhelming!" I'm not suggesting anyone does. Just provide a rational, consistant, standard skin that the majority can use, then provide a powerful enough engine that can handle application look&feel and drag&drop events not otherwise handled. Then write a simple UI editing engine. If people want their own UI, give them the tools to provide it.
"Most people wouldn't bother." Probably true, but the Open Source dictum is that some will, and that evolution will lead to superior interfaces.
"How does that benefit company X that sells products?" Easy enough. Every time you're about to release a next major version, look and see whether other skins are doing better than your default. If they are, switch. If that's how everyone sees your program anyway, it won't hurt anyone's ability to use it.
Good points... (Score:4, Insightful)
By rejecting everything in Windows as "evil", they're rejecting many good things like the UI and configuration consistency. Why should we have to rely on MANY DIFFERENT stuff for configuration, when Windows does it elegantly with its Control Panel? (I'm talking about the first tier, not the registry crap - Control Panel would do as well by using
To configure stuff in Linux, you have an app to configure the screen, another to configure the network, etc. etc. And THIS is the problem with Linux fundies. "Why change it? It works". It was attitudes like this that gave birth to answers like the famous quake 3 under linux [slashdot.org] troll, which originally was a legitimate complaint.
In comparison, Ubuntu (as we saw recently) has an extensive list of things-to-be fixed [launchpad.net] to make it more user friendly (like hardware recognition, boot loaders, package management), and this was the reason to delay Dapper, so they can finish the ones currently being worked.
My theory is that Linux needs a critical-mass of user friendliness to replace Windows on the Joe Users' desktops, and Ubuntu seems to approach that critical mass quite fast. Maybe in 3 or 4 years, it will happen.
With the flamewars in mind (Score:4, Informative)
Re:converting others to linux users (Score:5, Informative)
Average users won't know the difference.
Of course, they wouldn't know the difference even if you didn't skin it.
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Re:Missing point (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, not all applications are for what you call "average user". I wouldn't advocate that our secretary learns how to use Vim, but I also wouldn't use another editor if I could avoid it. And I certainly didn't write Vim.
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Re:Microsoft (Score:5, Interesting)
I've installed Linux Desktop on laptops belonging to people that doesn't even know what an operating system is - and they got on well.
Now if you wanted to say Linux is hard to administer.
They yes, you are completely right.
If we get pre-built desktop system with Linux installed with all the compatible peripherals
When you get a machine optimized for Windows, non-compliant BIOS, Linux-unfriendly video-card, broadcom wireless chipset, some Lexmark printer, some Canon Scanner
Not being a propagandist at all -- but one thing I find curious about non-tech users after they been exposed to Linux (for a while)
The Linux system obviously would have to be set in a very friendly way for that to happen - which is what I do to other people's dying PC when I am bored
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