The Clueless Newbie Rides Again 636
overshoot writes "Anyone remember The Clueless Newbie's Linux Odyssey? As it happens, she's come back to have a go at Ubuntu Feisty. 'Four years ago I tried about a dozen Linux distributions, to see if they were ready for an ordinary user to install as an escape from the Windows world. None of the distros performed well enough for me to recommend them to a non-geek unless they were going to hire someone to install it. After hearing Dell's recent announcement that it will sell computers with pre-installed Ubuntu Linux, I decided to see if Ubuntu was user-friendly.'"
Ubuntu is hit or miss (Score:4, Interesting)
Ubuntu isa nice distro but it needs work. I will continue to use it but nly beause I know how to tweak and fix things. Your average user does not. IMO software installation on Linux needs a lot of work. f we could get it to the point of ease that Apple has then I feel Linux would be a real alternative to windows.
Still a long way to go (Score:5, Interesting)
As much as possible would be brought over from Windows. Network configuration information, browser favorites, email client configuration, desktop icon layout, even the desktop wallpaper -- anything to make Linux feel more like home. It's all there, just the way they like it, why not copy it as much as possible?
If there's any problems, they can be found and addressed while the user is still in the safety of Windows.
Re:Not at all clueless (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't know what it is or why but Linux makes people want to become power users. He has since upgraded his box to Ubuntu Studio and fixed a few networking problems that he was having. Sure, he probably googled most of it, but he actually felt the need to learn more instead of just scratching his head and offering me beer to fix his problem. I do miss the beer though
Doesn't Clobber Win2k (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe she should realize that there's only ONE COMPANY out there that assumes it owns your whole PC....
I'm impressed, she figured it all out. (Score:5, Interesting)
Holy crap! a complete newbie installed a complete 64 bit system and it worked with a few minor problems with non free software not found in 32 bit versions. She had trouble with DVDs, Nvidia drivers, Flash and Picasa, and did not like the GDM login fonts. She was able to solve the Nvidia problem without too much trouble and seems to have made DVDs and Adobe Flash work. All of this with less effort than she would have put into a Windoze box. One reboot and everything "very automatic".
Her comments about non free software are scathing:
This is really cool and shows a good grasp of what free software is all about. She figured out that the non free parts were the problem, not the free parts. This kind of enlightenment from a non programmer is great to see.
Her conclusion is an uncompromising endorsement:
The more I think about it, the nicer the article is. This is a picky user and she's been satisfied. Many of her fears, such as the complete loss of data and OS overwrite, came from M$ use, so her opinion is likely to improve.
Re:ya (Score:3, Interesting)
more and more stuff is Just Working (Score:4, Interesting)
The article matches up fairly well with my own experience, although I think the contrast between her earlier trial and the current one may be a little overstated. I just did an install of ubuntu on a laptop yesterday, and I was impressed that (a) the system was installed successfully (not so long ago, installing linux on a laptop was unlikely to work without major pain and suffering), and (b) the wifi card automagically worked. This is in contrast to the situation a year ago, when I installed ubuntu on my daughter's desktop machine, and had to spend a weekend messing around before I could get her wifi to work.
One thing that I think is not acceptable yet is printing. Within the last few months, I got my vanilla laser printer working on my linux box. It was a truly nasty and time-consuming process. This is not a case where you can blame patents and proprietary interfaces, etc., either. The printer is a Brother HL-1440. Brother hired the CUPS developers to write GPL'd linux drivers. The problem is mainly just that the linux implementation of CUPS is a disaster. (The MacOS X implementation seems fine, AFAICT.)
Re:Encouraging... (Score:5, Interesting)
My laptop works better out-of-the-box in Ubuntu than it does in Vista (I installed both, dual-booting, this past weekend).
Of course, I should probably mention that I cheated: the laptop in question is a Thinkpad x60 Tablet, and Thinkpads are almost always well-supported in Linux. It's got Intel graphics, a screen with a weird resolution (1400x1050), Atheros WiFi, a Wacom digitizer, extra buttons next to the screen, volume buttons, a fingerprint scanner, and a hard drive accelerometer. Here's what worked, and what didn't:
Windows Vista
Kubuntu Linux
I should note that this page [no-ip.org] was extremely useful.
Overall, both Kubuntu and Vista work pretty well. Vista has a few unresolved annoyances though, such as the non-working volume keys and the fact that the screen orientation doesn't automatically change in tablet mode (note: I had to add acpi actions to do that in Linux). If it weren't for the lack of tablet-friendly applications in Linux, I wouldn't have Windows on here at all.
Re:To bring this up yet again: (Score:3, Interesting)
What in windows is Network Manager? Have you used a Wireless Network with Windows? Beryl and Compiz go the opposite direction (Windows was playing catch-up on the whole composite desktop front). What other "new features" ie things that haven't been a core part of every GUI for 3+ years are you referring to?
And then you have MySQL, Apache, etc on the server side, which Windows has been playing catchup with for years.
Pitiful Shame She Can't Run Debian Etch (Score:4, Interesting)
It should not come as a surprise that she is really indifferent to Free (as in speech) software. She wants her hardware to "just" work. This unfortunately excludes a default Debian Etch. I've been through Sarge and Etch and I think Ubuntu competition has only benefited the Debian project because Etch is a far superior release of Free software. Yes, non-free is out there and relatively painless, but it still requires some stuff that she specifically did not want to do.
I would encourage potential Ubuntu users to give Debian Etch a spin first. It's much, much more reliable, has many different installers including the excellent graphical installer and is a huge improvement over Sarge, pretty much blowing away the old complaints about Debian.
Re:ya (Score:3, Interesting)
Err... Joe 6-pack has to change eventually. To Vista or to Linux. (Or Apple, I suppose.) And a lot of Joe 6-packs have heard distant rumbling, kind of like thunder on the horizon, that Windows is bad or kills kittens or something. Every day MS gives people more reasons to consider a move to Linux - even regular users. And I don't see his as an anti-MS troll. I currently have (between work and home):
Apple MacBook Pro (dual boot OS X, Windows XP Pro)
openSUSE desktop/test server
Vista Ultimate desktop
Windows XP Pro desktop
So I do most of my work in Windows and I admire a lot of the powerful things you can do (excel is my favorite Windows program). But it doesn't change the fact that even if Vista and Office 2007 are better, they are different. And most people know this. And as long as they are doing something different, they think "why not try that linux thing I hear so much about. Isn't it free?"
Linux needs to be ready for those users to capitalize on the turbulence of MSs switch to Vista and 2007 over the next couple of years.
Re:Doesn't Clobber Win2k (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Not at all clueless (Score:4, Interesting)
Thats easy. With windows people take things for granted (like the OS crashing, but coming back after a reboot), and that "any software will run on it.
With Linux there is a cognitive break with their "Windows Knowledge", so the user feels they need to learn in order to make sure they don't "mess it up".
Of course once they start learning one of two things happens:
1) They get overwhelmed by bad/wrong/lots-of information and ask someone else to help (similar to lots of windows folks).
2) They find that it makes sense, they can do what they want without problems, and their system doesn't keep crashing. Once they no longer have to husband the system and be afraid that anything they do will make it crash, they can actually start to have fun with it.
Re:And? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:And? (Score:2, Interesting)
Competition is always good. You can see what's happening in the AMD/Intel and even NVidia battles. MS will eventually make a *nix based system themselves if they begin to feel a death near. (my theory)
As far as games go, there are a few proggys in the making that actually run windows based games faster than windows itself. How reliable it is, I don't know.. but, you'll start to see a trend, I'm sure.
I've been running Windows since it was introduced and it's alright. It's always had it's bugs and such... but, I'm comfortable with it. Server 2003 in my eyes, is the most relable and easy-going system on the planet. Again, that's my theory. I recommend those who haven't messed with it, give it a try. It's in all honesty the best operating system that Microsoft has created. Unfortunately, they'll find some way to fuck it up.
Re:And? (Score:5, Interesting)
I have no idea what you just said.
And this is the part of *nix that has always scared me.
I don't know what GNOME or KDE means. I don't know if they're acronyms or abbreviations or what. I'm sure 5 minutes on Google can help me, but I don't want to spend 5 minutes searching for everything "new" in *nix, because, well, EVERYTHING is new to me! If I were to spend 5 minutes on each new *nix term I heard, I would end up spending the better part of a weekend just learning. That's not what I want to do with my weekend.
Your comments, jZnat, look like they're trying to be helpful, but things like this are where people like me get worried and/or scared. I totally understand there will be a learning curve; I expect there to be one. However, I've only just decided to install, and already I'm worried I'm going to do something wrong.
I live alone and I don't have an in-house geek to default to when things go wrong, nor will there be anyone to 'fix' anything I do wrong. Granted, I have a legit copy of Windows 2k Pro (yes, I bought it) which I've reinstalled countless times before, and nothing on my hard drive is irreplacable, so the worst case scenario is a clean Win2kPro install.
Let me sum it up as best I can: I'm wary because you just gave me an option and I don't know of the reprocussions to choosing one over the other.
Regardless, I put my contact info into my bio, and will leave it there for a day or two, so if anyone wishes to contact me they can. Wish me luck.
And yet (Score:3, Interesting)
I find it funny that so many virus writers and crackers will do stories where they say that they choose Windows because it is much easier to crack than any other OS, and yet, folks like you fight this. Soon we will get "experts" like you claiming that Linus created Linux because aliens told him to.
Do you really want to play this game? (Score:3, Interesting)
Notice how the default Ubuntu desktop has a very Windows-like taskbar at the bottom, for minimized stuff, and a Windows-like system tray in the upper right, and an OS9-like menu bar at the top left... Notice how we also have virtual desktops, which are a hackish addon everywhere else but Leopard, which isn't out yet...
Notice how we also have things like package management, which does not exist ANYWHERE except in the Unix world, except (you guessed it) as hackish addons, or very proprietary things. That is, Apple has Software Update, which updates Apple software only. Windows has Microsoft Update, which is the same thing, but for Microsoft software. There's Fink for OS X, which is out of date, ugly, and hackish, and I forget what there is for Windows, other than cygwin, which hardly counts. And before any of these, we had apt on Linux.
We also had print to PDF in OpenOffice before anyone else.
We have a file/web browser (Konqueror) which is a bit like Windows/Internet Explorer (only done right), and we have external drives automagically appearing on the desktop (almost exactly like OS X, only they're mounted under
Need I go on?
The Linux distros that are meant for end-users are still way more flexible than Windows or OS X. For a quick example, install a different window manager or desktop environment -- even GNOME to KDE should show a difference, but try Fluxbox, WindowMaker, RatPoison, Enlightenment, or straight Beryl for something completely different. Or hit ctrl+alt+f1.
Sure, out of the box, they resemble Windows a bit more closely, but even the stupidly-conservative GNOME has things that Windows doesn't. KDE, while it superficially looks more like Windows, has even more -- out of the box, on Kubuntu, try alt+space and start typing something (like "konqueror") to see what I mean. Or pop a CD in -- on Windows, you can always eject the CD by punching the botton on the drive, but if it's in use, you get something resembling a BSOD. (It's been awhile, so this may be better by now...) On my Kubuntu, the physical "eject" button is intercepted by the OS, and if the CD is busy, it won't eject, but it will pop up a message telling you it couldn't, and exactly what programs are still using the CD. (And if you know what you're doing, you can always force-unmount it and then eject, or kill the processes involved.) This is actually somewhat borrowed from Macs, which have no physical eject button, only a button on the keyboard which is handled entirely in software.
Re:So? (Score:2, Interesting)
More than the clueless users, the ISPs have to share a lot of responsibility with the packages they sell. A friend of mine who lives across town finally got broadband access. He couldn't get ADSL where he lives because he's too far from the exchange so he got cable installed, and the company supplied a set top TV box and a cable modem. He IM'd me to let me know:
Him: "Hey, I got internet!"
Me: "Congrats."
Him: "I got a package from Company X that gives me 30 million TV channels and free phone calls and a fixed IP address for only $x a month. The guy came and installed it all this morning."
Me: "Nice. What's your IP?"
Him: "It's xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx. It's really fast, I can download stuff in seconds that used to take me ages. Gimme links to some good porn sites... and where can I download some tunes?"
Him: "Weird..."
Me: "What?"
Him: "Some file just appeared on my desktop. It wasn't there earlier."
Me: "It's just a text file. Read it."
Him: "It says I should unplug my network cable and go buy a router."
Him: "How did you know it was a text file?"
He runs XPsp2.