Torvalds On Desktop Linux's Slow Uptake 450
javipas notes a Wired piece summarizing a two-part interview with Linus Torvalds that's up at linux-foundation.org (part 1, part 2). In the second part the creator of the Linux kernel gives his view on the limited success of Linux on the desktop. "I have never, ever cared about really anything but the Linux desktop... The desktop is also the thing where people get really upset if something changes, so it's really hard to enter the desktop market because people are used to whatever they used before, mostly Windows... better is worse if it's different."
People don't like change (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:4, Insightful)
As usual: (Score:3, Insightful)
The main problem most early adopters have (that I see) IS in the difference to Windows or OS X. And that first difference is a feature: Security.
If there was a distro that was identical to XP, and booted straight to the desktop with root privileges, incorporating wine automatically, and having gimpshop, firefox, open office, urban terror, an identical winamp clone, et al configured as near as possible to the hegemonic forces of today's markets, it would gain a lot of traction very quickly.
Ditto for an OS X clone.
Many people do not want a password, do not want security, and do not want variety or choice. They want what has always worked for them, and they want it for free. I've seen more spam, viruses, trojans, rootkits, and other problems in the Windows world than anywhere else (obviously), but people keep going back there, because (sort of) IT JUST WORKS, and they are used to it. I've seen computers with virii and Mcafee that took 20 minutes to boot, but the user didn't care! Once it was up it had the stuff they were used to: Photoshop, Windows, Microsoft Office, and Outlook. There are pretty seamless replacements for all these, but they are generally not bundled by default in any distro, and are not 100% compatible across the board with the hegemonic software competitors.
*i* like the enhanced security of not logging in automagically as root, but grandma doesn't. Grandma says "fuck it" and goes and drops $500 on a dell, or maybe a mac.
Just give the people what they want (right or wrong!) and the masses will come. Now is the chance, since vista sucks balls, and sp1 doesn't fix it at all!
It all falls under the category of "Keep it simple, stupid", really. I'm still waiting for a distro that during install gives you two choices:
Super Secure
Just Like Windows
That will be the distro that finally takes huge chunks out of the windows market. Ubuntu is close, but still pretty far away.
Totally wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is this so hard for so many people to understand? The reason Linux doesn't get adopted has nothing to do with how the desktop works. I have news for you: Linux, Windows and the Mac are effectively identical when it comes to operating them.
I shout this from the rooftops everytime this comes up: PEOPLE USE APPLICATIONS, NOT OPERATING SYSTEMS.
Applications are EVERYTHING. Microsoft has long understood this. Why are people so upset at Vista? It's not because of the popups... it's because of the compatability problems. People want absolute, "it just works" compatability. People want to be able to walk into Best Buy, grab a box off the shelf (software OR hardware), and install it. No muss, no fuss. That's why the Mac has long had single digit adoption rates. People don't to figure anything out, they just want to buy a damn box and load it on.
Linux will be adopted with a) it has nearly perfect Windows compatibility, or b) the major companies start producing Linux version of their commercial software.
And yes, I understand that there are typically free versions of various commercial software. But again, people don't want to figure anything out. They want to know that if they see a box, it will work. If they buy that fancy computerized sewing machine (such as my mother-in-law), it will work.
Linus is talking high quality rubbish... (Score:3, Insightful)
If Linux is trying to ape the Windows look and feel, or its rubbish ever-changing architecture or dll hell... then it is doomed to failure in the long term. With Vista, Windows has reached saturation point - even long time users are reluctant to take on Vista or for that matter, IE7 or Office 2007.
Firefox isn't slow in its uptake because it is different from IE7; people use it bcos it is better. Linux trying to mock Windows would be a 10-year backward step, and doomed to failure.
RMS was right... Torvalds is just an engineer; he isn't great at predicting the future or reading people's minds.
Linux on Desktop? Ha (Score:3, Insightful)
I want Linux to be ready for the desktop.
I want Linux to provide a decent end user experience.
But it doesn't. It doesn't even come close. I've tried different flavors over the years. Most recently, I tried (and failed!) to install Ubuntu on my laptop and desktop at home. And here is what I've found...
Between driver issues, chicken and egg problems (my network isn't working, how can I can my network working if my network isn't working), absolutely atrocious user-friendliness, what still feels to this "power user" like a very steep learning curve (I just want to get wireless to work, what is a "NDIS wrapper"? I have to do WHAT?) , nothing built in to the OS to help with this and online forums that are full of extremely helpful people who give convoluted, conflicting and overly complicated advice...
It just isn't a good end user experience. Linux seems all about feature sets and me-too-ism. cleverly titled software packages that are a little embarrassing to run or talk about. But very little thought is given to getting something up and running so a regular person can hit the ground running. If you don't happen to have a family member or friend ready to walk you through the transition, you will end up spending tens/hundreds of hours to get to a point where you can do the same things you could with your Windows machine. The closest I ever came was the Knoppix Live CD about three years ago... but even that ended up being more work than what I got out of it.
Again -- I want Linux to be ready for the desktop. I understand as an IT professional that you can get a much leaner, more secure, stable configuration for a fraction of the price. At the enterprise level that makes sense. But for a regular person looking to take the plunge... documentation, easy of use, drivers that "just work" -- SIMPLE, NON TECHIE ways to get things working once they don't work without needing to learn something new -- all of these might be things that geeks scoff at. But until they are addressed, Linux will forever be a tiny slice on that pie chart.
Come on geeks. Microsoft is ripe for the picking. Macs will grow in market share. People will continue down the MS upgrade path and you'll keep talking about how 20__ is the year of desktop Linux...
Re:People don't like change (Score:5, Insightful)
People also don't like crappy UI's, programs with really absurd/dorky names that make no sense to anyone but nerds who get the inside joke (if there even is one), and O/S's that don't support their favorite software. Honestly, I'd say it's about 100x's more likely that OSX gains significant ground to the point where it makes sense for apple to source out OSX to third party system builders than it would that Linux gains any significant headground. You know, unless the Linux community understands and finally makes strides to make Linux a) look like a program you would actually go out and spend your hard earned money on and b) make the UI and naming convention on the included software logical.
Huh? Does Linus actually know people? (Score:4, Insightful)
Indeed (Score:1, Insightful)
Linux 10,000 and they ALL SUCK! Got iTunes?
Windows 50 of which 10 are good.
Apple 2.
Video Creation/Editing
Linux 20 and they ALL TOTALLY SUCK! Got Sony Vegas?
Windows 50 of which 10 are exceptional.
Apple 5
The list goes on and on and on and on but, you get the idea.
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Scared? Now you're getting the idea.
It's easy - just make it better (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not rip off the other guys? Rather than chase Windows, chase freakin' OS X. If Apple can make a glamorous OS based on Unix, why can't anyone make a glamorous OS based on Linux? Is it because Apple has those magical UI fairies? FOSS vs commercial shouldn't matter - people are ultimately the ones that make the stuff. Are you telling me there are no more best and brightest out there working in the FOSS world, that they're all snatched up and locked down for commercial project?
I love a lot of the aspects of the Linux desktop, but it just seems like the vast majority of FOSS projects' tagline should be "almost as good as the commercial counterpart, but it's free!". IMHO there are only a few major projects that have actually *improved* on their commercial counterparts and made a *better* product. And those projects are the ones that succeed. For Linux On The Desktop to actually work, it needs to stop trying to be the "free alternative to Windows or Mac" and actually be a *better* alternative, for more reasons than just not having to pay for the software.
Affordability will be the driver (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Totally wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
I have korean project partners who are angry with me because I won't install Office 2007 and make them save it in some older format. They are even playing games, claiming that they are using some essential parts (read Microsoft Equation Editor) which they cannot convert to old format.
I have given up on explaining the morality behind not using pirated copies... I have given up the rational that Office 2007 adds no new mission crucial functionality. I simply say that I don't have a computer and I work in my office. I don't even tell them that in my office I use OpenOffice, on Linux.
People are not masters in this area. There is a very simple thinking behind all this:
1) Expensive is good, more expensive is better, even when it is pirated.
2) I use bla/I _like_ bla, can you do it? (Until we can do it by clicking here and there, we are argument-less in their eyes.
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the Apps stupid! (Score:3, Insightful)
Perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
This middle-aged woman at the office listens to the "E-Z Rock" radio station. That's because it feels comfortable to her. She grew up with stuff like that.
Me? I turn that shit off the moment I get the chance.
Re:I disagrrree (Score:2, Insightful)
I wish you luck, but you probably don't understand why those of us for whom The Year Of Linux On My Desktop had a "199" in it laugh when we read comments like the original one here. Replace "Vista" with "Windows 98" and we've been reading that exact pronouncement for the last decade.
Dual boot Ubuntu (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux on Desktop? Ha (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Totally wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
I shout this from the rooftops everytime this comes up: PEOPLE USE APPLICATIONS, NOT OPERATING SYSTEMS.
The other side of that is that while people use applications, the operating system can break that experience. I think more people are starting to get sick of the spyware and virus slowdowns, and your average person doesn't know how to fix that so they buy a new computer when it 'gets slow'.
Also...most of those applications are web browsers, document editors, and the like. Good versions of these exist for Linux. So at the point where the applications are pretty much the same, even a non-technical user can see value in going with the system that's not going to crap out on them.
People don't to figure anything out, they just want to buy a damn box and load it on.
That was true 10 years ago. Now people don't want to buy the box. They want their computer to come with all the useful stuff they want. That's why Mac adoption rates are skyrocketing. And Linux distros are getting far better about including stuff people want to use, with native apps that are, in most cases, better than what ships with Windows.
See, that's the funny part now - people are getting so lazy and expect so much from the computer that software compatibility is becoming less and less of an issue. So there really is a significant opportunity for Linux to be used by 'regular people.' Only caveat is it needs to come pre-installed on their computer.
Re:Linux on Desktop? Ha (Score:3, Insightful)
Kernel tree driver (+ATI/nVidia): YES
Anything else: NO - no matter what you might read
Then go out and buy supported hardware. Don't assume that whatever strange winmodem or sound chip or printer or whatever will have Linux support. Start preparing for a migration BEFORE your actual migration by replacing hardware that WILL NOT work in Linux with hardware that will work while still on Windows. For a laptop, this means wait until it needs replacement and buy a Linux-supported laptop. When you're done (this may take a while) then try migrating, and if all else fails you can easily go the other way around and install Windows anyway.
What Joe User asks... (Score:3, Insightful)
2. Will it work with my iPod?
3. Does it run Office?
Want to grab customers? Then Wine must play Win95 games better than Vista as well as _all_ of the latest releases, automagically.
Linux must also interact with an iPod and be capable of running Office _at the time of installation_. No extra stuff to download -- it needs to 'just work'.
Forget "free as in free beer" -- if that were going to attract Joe User, it would have happened already. Instead, Mac has the buzz, despite its higher price.
Free downloads of Kubuntu forever, but my father-in-law had better have the chance to buy the above at Wal-Mart or Linux will never capture the desktop market.
Re:I disagrrree (Score:4, Insightful)
It's been a combination of several factors:
* The rise of FireFox and, to a lesser extent, Safari means that the web doesn't require, nor mean, Internet Explorer.
* The release of Vista and the negativity surrounding it has been key - people are pondering alternative OSes, including both Linux-based OSes and Mac OS X.
* The rise of Ubuntu as a 'standard' has helped solve the confusion of multiple competing desktops to new users and driven increased users. It's also improved support - UbuntuForums is a fantastic resource - and increasingly made GNOME as the "de facto" desktop environment.
* Improved driver support, which is going to keep improving. It's still far from perfect, sadly, but it is most definitely getting there - when Intel and ATI are both releasing open source specifications to get proper open source drivers written, it's a good sign.
* Eye-candy. It sounds silly, but people like eye-candy and Compiz Fusion delivers it.
* Vendor support. Big names like Dell are now taking steps towards Linux presumably as there is some demand. Hardware manufacturers are going to have to soon start touting Linux support for many OEMs to go onboard.
It's still not perfect, but neither is XP, Vista nor Mac OS X and I'm looking forward to a Linux-using future.
Re:People don't like change (Score:5, Insightful)
Luckily, KDE's Kickoff menu is lightyears ahead of Vista's Start menu, and Linux UIs in general are of pretty high quality.
Actually, they don't care much about names either way. As long as they can make the program do what they want it to with as little hassle as possible, they couldn't care less about its name.
Besides, KDE, for one, shows a short description of the program right in the menu, so you don't even have to memorize it.
Actually, it's the other way round: application vendors do not support certain operating systems.
There is little Linux people could do to support Photoshop, except create an emulation layer or something like that...
I'm truly fascinated with the way things are reversed in the computer world, and how natural it seems to most people... operating system developers should support applications, web designers should support browser rendering bugs... Get a grip on reality, will you, people?
I, for one, find a bit more logic in the Dapper Drake --> Edgy Eft --> Feisty Fawn progression then in the Panther --> Tiger --> Leopard one.
I'd even go so far to say that Windows seems to have the most inane naming policy, yet it still dominates the market.
Not that I find that naming really matters. At all.
As far as the way Linux looks — have you seen Compiz Fusion?
Do you know how many people not only considered, but actually started using Linux based on the Compiz bling factor alone?
And get this: you don't even have to spend your hard-earned money on it. ;)
I can get you a pirate version really cheap.
Re:People don't like change (Score:1, Insightful)
Why I don't use linux when I get the option (Score:4, Insightful)
What really soured me was when I worked for a company porting their Irix Applications to Linux. We ported the software and said specifically "Will only work with Red Hat 5" (this was a few years ago). That application made up less than 5% of sales and almost 40% of tech support inquiries because "OMG, it won't work on my custom hacked slackware/debian install why not!". Tell them, "Sorry, we only support RH" and then we'd get blogged on how bad we were on not being "Open".
Well, OSX came along, we ported to mac and dropped Linux support all together. Personally, at OS 10.2 is when I switched to OSX and never looked back. Most of those "switchers" I knew back then were Linux users who jumped to Mac OSX.
When my time became worth something to me personally, the fact that I could have MS Office, Photoshop, a complete Unix-based development environment all on one machine. Including use of tools like Quickbooks, when I started out as a consultant, and all the ProTools.
When my clients give me the choice, I deploy on BSD. When I don't get the choice I still stratch my head at how simple things like the MySQL start command are located in different locations depending on the distro. It's this lack of standardization that was annoying back then and while better, is still annoying now.
Re:People don't like change (Score:3, Insightful)
I think he's referring to things like "The Gimp," everything that starts with a lower-case "g" or "k" (why call it "gedit" instead of just edit? Yes, I know, to point out that it runs under Gnome, but most people outside the Linux community don't care about that difference), "Xine, (Media Player actually describes what the software does)" "K3b (I would imagine more people get the burn reference with Nero than with KDE Burn Baby Burn)," and so many more that are even weirder and more obscure.
Just so you know, I happen to be a very pleased Ubuntu 7.10 user. It's the first Linux desktop that my wife enjoys using on a regular basis. It doesn't have random window manager crashes or kernel panics. Slightly off topic, but is there an easy (no command line editing of config files or crap like that) way to setup my MX1000 Logitech mouse under Ubuntu?
Re:Simple reason enough (Score:3, Insightful)
I pause and try to make it recognizable by saying "hey, Ubuntu looks and feels a lot like OS/X, which is itself essentially BSD with eye candy."
They invariably blink, sigh and ask "so, should I just get a Mac?"
At that point, 99% of the time, it is very hard to argue with them.
Re:I disagrrree (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you try d4x [krasu.ru]? There's also: wget -i urllist.txt
There's really no need to switch to windows just to download something.
Re:People don't like change (Score:1, Insightful)
"edit" is a verb, "gedit" is a program. Perhaps it could just be called "Editor"? It is somewhat immaterial. In the US, common names are hard to trademark so you have lots of intentional mispellings, like "Kwik Lube" for a 10-minute oil change joint. "gedit" is a descriptive, generic name and given the simplicity of the task - text editing - it is not worthy of occupying the brand name space in our brains like with "TeXtify!" or something.
different bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the argument Linus makes in the article. I agree with it to some extent, but I also think the way he presents it is a little misleading. He makes it sound like Windows and Linux are just different, so there's absolutely nothing the Linux community can do to encourage adoption of Linux on the desktop -- it's all a matter of users' ingrained prejudices. But Windows and Linux aren't just different by design, they're also different in terms of their bugs. If you use Windows as your desktop, you encounter bugs. If you use Linux as your desktop, you encounter bugs. For instance, I've just spent half an hour this morning dealing with an issue in CUPS where every time I boot my Linux box, it starts spewing page after page of raw postscript. (Deleting the job from the queue didn't help. It just reappared the next time I booted the machine.) Well, this is a bug that I know about now, and I have workarounds for it. (Delete the printer and then reinstall it in CUPS's web interface.) Bugs in the Windows desktop aren't a strong motivation for Windows users to switch to Linux, because they're used to those bugs, never really think about them much. But if they were to try Linux, they'd say, "Oh my god, this OS is a total piece of crap. Look at the printer spewing page after page of garbage, and it starts again every time I reboot. This is pathetic. I'm sticking with Windows." They notice the Linux bugs more because they're unfamiliar and mysterious, and also when you switch OSes, you get hit with lots of these new and unfamiliar bugs all at once.
So it's not just a matter of user preference, and it's not something that's outside the control of developers in Linux's OSS ecosystem. The quality of the Linux desktop sucks -- sometimes I think it sucks almost as much as the quality of the Windows desktop -- and it needs to be improved. If that happens, it will increase adoption of Linux on the desktop.
Re:People don't like change (Score:2, Insightful)
I highly doubt that will happen. Surely if OS X gains enough ground in this respect, there'll be little need for Apple to outsource OS X, as it will have been installed on the 10s of millions of Macs that they've shipped? Either way, it'll be better than Vista. By an order of magnitude.
Exactly. The problem with desktop Linux is that it seems to be designed by people who have trouble visualising what end users want and expect. Even though Ubuntu's install is better than most Linux OSes, it should be simplified for newer users. This is where it can get ahead of Windows, because at the moment if Windows breaks Joe Windows will go to his local IT guy to reinstall it. This is because he doesn't understand what 'partitions' and 'bootloaders' and 'MBRs' and 'partition tables' are, and is scared of a TUI installer where he can't use the mouse. Remember that Ubuntu has a fully graphical process, and if there was an automatic partitioning option (e.g. partition off 20% of the Windows/OS X partition) it would beat Windows hands down.
And the OSS community needs to stop claiming 'FOSS is so great because you can redistribute it, modify it and help create it for free'. They don't give a toss about that: all they care about is getting something that'll work and is easy to use. And they'll also like a freebie - although some people might be suspicious that it's a con(fidence trick, ie a scam), so then the 'community development' card can be played.
Re:People don't like change (Score:5, Insightful)
These are the main obstacles:
1. a lack of unity of experience. The unix way is great for system admins and people who like "a lot of little tools doing well-defined small things well". That is exactly what a desktop user, generally, doesn't want. An end-user is interested in their work, not the computer's work: they (and since I left IT, that includes me) want my components to integrate smoothly. This means an address book that intelligently talks to my mail client, which is aware of my calendar. It means not only that the menu navigations are both consistent across applications and let me do what I want to do with information that is only one or two clicks away from being revealed to me, but that default settings generally work and that any customizations I do are unlikely to be harmful.
2. "the Linux community" is not a unified development team. There is no final decision maker. There is no unifying vision. This make Linux a great place to a. learn stuff, b. experiment, c. scratch unusual and idiosyncratic itches. There are, of course, distributions that try to introduce more discipline and restraint, but then they run afoul of the fact that 3rd parties are developing for "Linux," not so much for this or that flavor of Ubuntu or what-have-you. In short, distros are small neighborhoods.
3. Advertised and guaranteed hardware support. I have a MacBook. While not every peripheral in the world supports Mac, I can look at the packaging of a peripheral and see a "Mac" logo on it, and buy it without breaking a sweat. In Linux, not only do I need to Google, but I should probably check SKUs, versions, warnings, etc.