Is Linux Out of Touch With the Average User?

MrSmith writes "Is Linux's less than impressive market share an indication that the movement is out of touch with the average computer user? ZDNet examines five reasons that could explain why people are still willing to pay for (or pirate) an operating system when free alternatives exist. One of the reasons seems to be that despite what many Linux advocates claim, Windows users aren't on the whole dissatisfied with their OS: 'Despite what you read on websites and blogs, newspapers and magazines, people on the whole aren't all that dissatisfied with Windows. There are millions of users out there who just get on and use their PCs without any real difficulty.'"

Because it comes with a spell checker...

[gillbates]

why people are still winning to pay for (or pirate) an operating system..

Ok, Windows doesn't really come with a spell checker. But Microsoft Office does, and people think that if they use Linux, they'll end up sounding like some hacker-type...

While I said it in jest, I think there's a point to be made. People tend to use the operating systems that best suit them (or from another perspective: that they deserve). Linux users and Windows users have different needs. Surprise, yawn.

It would be more constructive to talk about how Linux users can improve the experience for Windows users. I know of quite a few people who hate computers altogether because of their experience with Windows, and, tragically, because of this, are unwilling to try anything different because they fear it will be more of the same.

Why there are more windows and mac users

[emil10001]

"There are millions of users out there who just get on and use their PCs without any real difficulty.'There are millions of users out there who just get on and use their PCs without any real difficulty.'"

Yes, and my bet is that many of them wonder why opening their web browser takes 5 mintues.

Q: Why are there so many windows and mac users campared with linux users?
A: Because MS Windows and Mac OS X both come pre-installed on cheap/pretty boxes that the customer doesn't need to think about. MS and Apple also both have large, highly visible marketing efforts behind their software to make people aware of the brand, and attract them to the product. There is also the fear of something different that I'm sure many windows/mac users feel towards linux, they don't understand it, and it looks different from what they've seen before.

I think that the most effective way to get linux out to the people would be a large, highly visible marketing effort. As well as an easy way for people to get a linux distro onto their box without them needing to think about it too much.

Number 3 nailed it

[niloroth]

Quite frankly, i think the 3rd point was one of the biggest. I am rather good with computers, and networking, but getting my acer laptop to work with the wireless b/g card in it under any distro is more than i am willing to do. I can NDISwrapper the drivers, and have a card that will only work in b mode under linux, if i go in and mess about with the conf files. But even then there are seemingly random times where it will just stop working. And going between multiple networks without stopping and restarting the service is simply an exercise in futility, something windows doesn't have a problem with at all. I realize that without driver support from the manufacturers this will continue to be a problem, but non the less, it is a reason for the lack of market share, because if i don't fell like going through the hassle, i feel most users wouldn't even get far enough along to realize that all this work is far more than should be needed.

Re:Yes

[morgan_greywolf]

And the fact that it has a reputation as being something only computer geeks "can" use.

Undeservedly. My non-geek wife gets by on Linux just fine without much help from me at all.

And the fact that if you want to use any programs on linux you usually have to compile the source yourself.

Um, no. Not one application program on any of my three Ubuntu boxes at home is compiled from source. Most were either installed from the Ubuntu CD, installed via 'Add/Remove Programs', or installed via Synaptic.

And the fact that there are no human interface designers working on the linux project.

On the kernel? No. Kernels need human interface designers like Alaskan Eskimos need air conditioners. On GNOME and KDE? Yes, there are several professional human interface designers working on GNOME and KDE.

Microsoft may not do function very well, but their form is getting better, and they have a comparatively simple interface for users.

And GNOME and KDE are getting form much, much better, modeling their environments by combining the best features Windows has to offer with the best features Mac OS X has to offer, blending them into unique, consistent, stable GUI environments.

Re:Yes

[The_Wilschon]

You really haven't used Linux in a long time. Package management of precompiled binaries has been a major feature, even the defining feature, of most distributions for at least 8 years. Something like 22,000+ packages available in the Ubuntu repositories today, all of them precompiled. You don't even have to know what a compiler is to use most any program you can think of on Ubuntu. (or RHEL, or SUSE, or Mandriva, or, or, or)

Re:Yes

[AKAImBatman]

the Linux GUI is much younger

Not so! X was developed in 1984 at MIT. The current X11 version was released in 1987. Windows 1.01 was released in 1985.

As for the constant cycling of Desktop Environments, it's not Microsoft's fault that they've kept their system stabilized on a single DE since 1995 while the Linux community cycles through WMs and DEs like FVWM, Afterstep, Enlightenment, KDE, GNOME, and XFCE.

NT GUI would be being based on a design that is 22 years old

You're not serious, are you? The NT GUI is nowhere near 22 years old. You can say that the Windows platform had graphics for 22 years, but the actual GUI has changed several times. Windows 1.x had a horrendous tiled-window interface that (thankfully) went the way of the Dodos. Windows 2.0 finally included overlapping windows, but the design was still pretty cruddy. Microsoft gave it one more shot with Windows 3.0 and a new Progman before giving up on the original GUI altogether.

In Windows 95, Microsoft used research from the Cairo project to produce a brand new GUI that had almost nothing in common with the previous Windows GUIs. This GUI has been the underpinning of the Windows platform since then, making the Windows GUI about 12 years old. The oldest Linux desktop environment still in common use is KDE, which is about 2 years younger than the Windows GUI. So not a whole lot of difference there.

I had a similar problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I was given an old USB 802.11b device without any documentation or even a means of identifying the device (it was a dabs value item destined for the skip - no model number or anything).

Plugged it into XP and got nowhere. No drivers, no means of finding out what drivers I needed. Couldnt even get it to tell me what chipset it used. Remembered WHY I haven't personally used XP in years.

XP...its just a pain in the ass.

[/tongue in cheek]

Plugged it into my Ubuntu box and it worked first time, no configuration needed. Amazing how easy it is when you have drivers.

Re:Yes

[dylan_-]

It's because you didn't update to 6.10. Check on the ubuntu forums about updating 6.06 -> 6.10 -> 7.04. I believe it's not advisable to try and skip directly to the latest (of course, if you have /home on a separate partition, you may find it easier to just wipe and re-install).

Re:Yes

[bishiraver]

"Something like 22,000+ packages available in the Ubuntu repositories today, all of them precompiled. "

This is also a major hurdle to people. How is Joe User going to know which of the 30 browsers he should use, or 20 file management utilities, or 20 calculators? Distributions come with standard software, generally, but even Ubuntu still requires you to connect to dubious quasi-legal repositories in order to get mp3 working. What Joe User is going to scour the internet for an obscure how-to on getting that to work?

Then there's the fact that most of the free software - gimp and openoffice - while excellent for student work, is woefully inadequate for typical professional work. And from the gamer point of view, well, okay - tuxracer. Quake 3. Um. WoW has a port, maybe? Cedega might work, but most likely won't - and will enjoy crashing your x server?

The only real market for linux right now is education, programming, and server applications. Two out of three are a HUGE minority of the installed end-user computer population.

Re:Yes

[enjerth]

It may be the fault of Mozilla, but it's still a part of my Linux experience and reflective of how hard transitioning Windows users have to try to accomplish tasks that they expect to be simple.

I made the choice for 6.06 because it said it was supported until 2009, where 7.04 says it's supported only until 2008.

Sounded strange to me that the older version would enjoy longer support, but I thought it would be better to have a version that does. So I was lead to believe that 6.06 was a better version.

Then, I am told by someone that I made another mistake when I downloaded the 64 bit version. One of my problems is I can't apt-get the source for the purpose of some installs.

I didn't expect it to be easy, but I didn't expect it to be as difficult as it has been for me so far.

Re:Yes

[mhall119]

Ubuntu 6.06 is intended to provide a secure and stable environment for a long period of time. It is designed to use the same packages (with only security and stability updates) until the end of it's support cycle. That is why there is no Firefox 2 offered to you from Ubuntu's update manager. There is also no IE7 for Windows2000 users (for other reasons), so your problem isn't unique to Ubuntu.

So you have two options, you can either upgrade your OS to a recent version of Ubuntu, which is still free and usually painless, or you can download and install Firefox 2 directly from Mozilla. It's worth nothing that this is twice as many options as a Windows2000 user wanting IE7 has.

Re:Yes

[Knuckles]

Well, until I get it figured out, I don't know if it does or doesn't have anything to do with compiling.

There is little to figure out: go to firefox.com, download, read instructions. If you google for 'install "firefox 2.0" "ubuntu 6.06"', you will find a list of neat links to help.

Re:I have 3 words for you:

[Knuckles]

Not true, Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty) will prompt you and install missing codecs for you. This works as long as you stay with the default applications (that use gstreamer). Otherwise follow https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormat s [ubuntu.com]

Re:It's not Linux's fault...

[Vishal]

Linux is losing out more to Mac OS X than Windows. Linux used to be big in academia, not anymore. I was the first user of Linux in India back in 1993, back in the days when the kernel version was about 0.15 and you had to finger Linus's account at hut.fi to find out about the latest update. I diligently used Linux as my desktop for the better part of the next decade through my grad school days and even when I became a faculty in a CS dept. Right through however, I remember constantly switching distributions or libc versions or using crossover/vmware to run the windows apps that I needed. Even then I didn't feel the need to switch my OS.

Once I saw Mac OS X however, I decided to switch and haven't looked back in the last 5 years. It offers the power of Unix under the hood and the ability to Office apps natively. I am not sure how much OpenOffice has evolved or GoogleApps, but running StarOffice in those days used to be a nightmare. Now when I look around me, from grad students to fellow faculty, everyone seems to be running Mac OS. Things "just work". No more hunting around for drivers or Office-approximations. I think Mac OS has killed whatever momentum Linux might've had in the desktop/laptop space. It has offered a much better alternative than Linux for frustrated Windows users, and I don't see that changing in the near future.

-Vishal

Re:The VCR clock analogy

[TheThiefMaster]

If you go into network connections and ask for the status of any of your network connections it's in there.

Re:Yes

[mhall119]

You Linux apologists have yet to admit that the MP3 codecs aren't installed by default in anything except possibly XMMS. Not the default audio player that installs with Ubuntu, not Audacity and not VLC and not any other of the 50 or so MP3 players in the repos, all of which use different icons for their playlist buttons, their file add buttons, their fucking play buttons.

Ok, now that I'm done laughing, I can respond.

No, MP3 codecs are not installed by default on any free distro, that is because you have to pay somebody for the right to distribute them. Microsoft pays them, Apples pays them, multiple Linux distros pay them and include the codec by default. You want something that costs money, but you want it for free, and you somehow think this is Ubuntu's fault? If out of the box MP3 support is so damned important to you, then pony up the cash for it yourself.

Windows doesn't come with every codec installed by default either and WMP, try as it might, just can't ever seem to find and install the missing codec for you. Your complain about different applications looking different is also ludicrous, name two mp3 players for Windows that look the same. Hell, every WinAmp skin has different looks and buttons.

So you installed Amarok and it worked OK therefore all other applications built for KDE work fine under Gnome? You are the one making shit up.

No, but I've not had a problem with any of the Ubuntu supported ones. And KDE apps run a hell of a lot better in Ubuntu than they do on Windows. I have had all manner of Windows apps cause instability and system crashes, but I don't blame Microsoft when I install third party apps, why do you blame Ubuntu?

Oh, and VLC isn't an MP3 player either.

Re:Yes

[morgan_greywolf]

Have you guys even looked at an Ubuntu Application menu?

It's not called 'GIMP', it's called 'GIMP Image Editor'. It's not called 'Totem', it's called 'Movie Player'. It's not called 'Evolution', it's called 'Evolution Mail Client'. It's not called 'GAIM/Pidgin', it's called 'Instant Messenger'.

Next?