CBC Recommends Linux To Average User 270
rustalot42684 writes "The CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] has posted an article on its website promoting the use of Ubuntu Linux to the 'average computer user'. 'With the exception of gaming, which is limited, almost all of the average person's basic computing needs are well looked after with this package. I've used the last three versions of Ubuntu on my main portable web-surfing computer for years just to avoid viruses and spyware (as the vast majority of these nasty programs are written for Windows), and I have yet to be disappointed.' The author seems to have made some sweeping generalizations about the development of GNU/Linux, but that aside, will mainstream media coverage help more people switch?"
The CBC is generally forward thinking... (Score:5, Interesting)
The CBC has been very responsive to complaints, comments, etc. Check it out at http://radio3.cbc.ca/podcasting/podcastplaylist.a
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Budget (Score:5, Funny)
Every little bit counts. (Score:5, Interesting)
My year of Linux on the desktop was 2002, but I've also had a lot frustrations along the way... including with the upgrade to my Ubuntu upgrade today. I eventually solved it by using vim to comment out lines 543 and 544 (not lines 541 and 542, like it said in the Ubuntu Forums) of
I had a sad realization today, reading an earlier Slashdot post. To beat Windows (much less Mac OS) on the desktop of people who are not early adopters, Linux does not have to be as good -- as I believe it is, on balance. Rather, it has to be better, and conspicuously better.
For some people, this will mean games. For others, multimedia. For still others, CAD, or other occupation-specific apps. But for everyone, it means "When I want to do _______, it better work on the first try."
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That doesn't matter. What matters is that others will not put up with a lot of frustration. As much as they hate "computers" (read: Windows), they won't try something new, because either they've memorized what to do when things go wrong (Cntl+Alt+Del) or they have someone to go to that has a nomi
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There is nothing we can do about it.
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The theory in games is not that you have to be conspicuously better, but that you have to do ONE THING which the other systems do not do. That it isn't the cumulative value of all of the little upgrades, but one significant bit of func
Not Mom, yet. First, Mom's company. (Score:3, Informative)
Don't be sad. Look at it from a corporation's point of view.
#1. FREE!!!!!
#1a. No more money spent tracking licenses
#1b. No more time spent tracking licenses
#1c. No more threats of "license compliance audits".
#2. The package system means
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Well, maybe now that the world knows that Linux is really a cute girl it will change.
Security is sufficient (Score:2)
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Which is exactly why I use linux
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Dodgy wording in the submission, eh? (Score:5, Informative)
No, David Conabree, a regular reviewer of new high-tech gear and longtime computer user has written a favorable story on Ubuntu that's been published on the cbc.ca website.
I'm a big fan of cbc.ca and most things Canadian (except for the beer, of course), but I doubt they have an official position of open source software, or are otherwise in the habit of recommending a particular Linux distro to their readers.
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Shouldn't that read.... actually just the beer? Like the old joke goes... How is American beer like sex in a canoe? It's f^H^H^H^Hing close to water.
BBC Not so Squeemish about Panning Vista. (Score:2, Informative)
I doubt they [CBC] have an official position of open source software, or are otherwise in the habit of recommending a particular Linux distro to their readers.
Nah, might as well dismiss it as another crackpot letter to the editor, right? Wrong. The guy is a regular contributor with other articles, like this one [www.cbc.ca] to his name. So, yes, the author and the institution have issued an opinion. There will be more like that too.
If you listen to the BBC, you won't be using Vista anytime soon. [slashdot.org] As M$ jumps
Re:Dodgy wording in the submission, eh? (Score:4, Informative)
What is this fascination... (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this fascination with saying that the problem lies in making Linux friendlier to "the average user"?
Like the article says, Ubuntu covers very well the needs of the "average user". He needs basic tasks done, and Ubuntu does that well. Will he/she have issues along the way? Of course, in the same way that Windows does, which is the very same reason that you need to go to the average user's house every to months to clean up all the crapware that's installed in their machine and install codecs. After all, VLC and Firefox didn't appear on their desktops all by themselves now, did they?
No, the obstacle for Linux now lies in the odious "power user": the person that has developed a relatively good skill set for using Windows but is too stubborn to port it to another operating system, be it Linux, OS X, or whatever. This is, interestingly, a group of users for which many of us have contempt: they can achieve complex tasks but only because or rote learning and memorized steps. They will get that pretty Windows theme or know all the shortcuts to the one application the use frequently, but god forbid they have to use something else and they're lost all over again. They're the people that have command line phobia and yet will have no issues with editing registry files, difference being that the CLI is immensely useful and the Registry is the spawn of Satan.
Addendum: Gamers are not regular users. Regular users don't spend $250+ on a video card to play $60 games. CAD and design app users are not regular users either: they're domain specialists in whatever their application is, and industrial CAD solutions do exist for Linux and Unix. Ask 3d animation shops that used to be IRIX shops what they're using now.
Re:What is this fascination... (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting take on the subject. The greatest impediment to change of any sort is inertia, and while I doubt making a switch to Linux, etc. is any different, the category you describe is no doubt the most vocal.
This is, interestingly, a group of users for which many of us have contempt: they can achieve complex tasks but only because or rote learning and memorized steps. They will get that pretty Windows theme or know all the shortcuts to the one application the use frequently, but god forbid they have to use something else and they're lost all over again. They're the people that have command line phobia and yet will have no issues with editing registry files, difference being that the CLI is immensely useful and the Registry is the spawn of Satan.
It occurred to me many moons ago that the sum total of knowledge one obtains using Windows systems (both as a "power user" (ridiculous word) and/or as a typical sysadmin) is a giant convoluted collection of trivia that spans registry edits, workarounds for things that don't work or work badly, memorisation of GUI layout du jour, and various methods of reinstalling borked systems, the value of which erodes as time goes by. Put another way, unless you're a programmer regularly shelling out for an MSDN subscription, you probably know squat. And to paraphrase the poetry of Donald Rumsfeld, you probably don't know that you don't know.
By comparison, anyone, novice users included, who embarked on learning the basics of shell scripting, gained familiarity with a handful of standard programs, and learned how to use a text editor would find his or her skills just as relevant and valuable today as they did when DOS was commonplace. And chances are they would learned even more as time went on.
Re:What is this fascination... (Score:5, Informative)
That pretty much nails it. Just the other day I was trying to figure out why my PC was running slow after getting a new audigy sound card. Well, come to find out, the "driver software" also included about ten other "helper" programs that I didn't even need, some things were even for devices my particular sound card does not have. Of course these weren't in the places you'd expect (like services.msc or startup dirs). Some of these startup programs weren't even in msconfig. Noooo, instead they were in some CurrentVersion registry key, RunOnce I think it was. Insane. I remove them, and all is well. Why am I telling you this?
Because it's just as you said: just another piece of trivia to add to the heap. These registry edits, which I just found online, probably won't apply to Vista. Heck, I'd have never known where to look had I not stumbled across this info. There is no systematic approach one can take to fixing problems on Windows. I definitely feel like all the knowledge I have accumulated from fixing my PC as well as everyone else's (which I do successfully all the time) is just that...a heap of disconnected facts.
While I am somewhat green with the linux CLI (but typing this post on my ubuntu box, so I use linux), I have noticed that things are a bit more consistent on the Linux side. I think the one thing that make Windows easier, though, in spite of itself, is that somewhere someone has had a similar problem and fixed it. I have not had the same success with googling linux problems.
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It is unfortunate you were seen as a troll. I think you have a valid point. It's not rocket science to take care of administrating a desktop station, windows or linux.
Also like you I dislike the GP's over-generalized sterotype which transcribes windows "power users" into animals. It's cheap rhetoric that does nothing to lift up the GP's better arguments.
Further, using linux you also get to these arcane tweaks. Maybe not in the core system, but by using for instance your window manager of choice. And they
So... Unless You Game.. (Score:3, Interesting)
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If only it were that simple... (Score:4, Informative)
As a Canadian Linux user and advocate, I have handed out more than my share of Ubuntu and Kubuntu disks. To outline the problem that Linux is having in terms of actual adoption in Canada, the following story says it all.
A few days ago two studies were being discussed on both the CBC and CTV. The first study wanted to learn how many Canadians actually believed global warming was a reality. The numbers were high, and generally speaking believers numbered somewhere around the 70% mark. The second study wanted to learn how many people in Canada where prepared to do anything at all to help prevent global warming from actually happening. If memory serves, it was found that almost nobody ... effectively 0% ... would actually do anything themselves to help reduce the effects of global warming.
So, the studies show Canada to be a nation composed of a great many ardent believers in global warming, but believers who will do nothing themselves to prevent it. If you study our politics you would know that our actions in the last decade or so regarding Kyoto would certainly support that assessment. Simply put, we take great self-righteous pride in our ability to talk the talk, but anyone who pays attention soon learns that in the end we are completely incapable of walking the walk.
... back to Ubuntu ...
I have given out dozens of disks, and each person really, really wanted to try it. Successful installs to date? You guessed it ... Zero. Not one person was willing to spend two seconds learning even the most basic information about the beige box under their desk. In talking to people over the years I have learned that the idea that they would 'change' their computer to be about the same intellectually as asking them the grow an extra limb.
So I keep talking to people, and I show them my nifty looking Linux systems, and I convert the occasional rookie Windows sysadmin who hasn't yet had a chance to be burned by the Redmond flame, but average home users? I am becoming more and more convinced that unless Virii and such get so bad they destroy the Windows platform completely, Linux will only make major double digit inroads into the 'average user' base when hardware comes with some flavour of Linux pre-installed...
...or a whole shitload of non-programmer advocates like myself do it for them free, in our spare time.
--
Just curious, would it be correct to call a Windows rookie a Wookie? :-)
Well of course! (Score:2)
And this surprises you? Hey, I used to live in Canada. Canadians are looking forward to global warming. Heck, if they'd done that survey in winter, they'd probably get a negative percentage. This is Canada you're talking about,
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Anyway, I'm done with the whole Global Warming thing on my end. The whole phenomenon is turning into a way for would-be ascetics to peddle misery when there are solutions which don't require living in a cave. For example, both the Pulp and Paper industry and the lumber industry are moving to burning the waste wood from their processes
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Currently Governments in countries like Europe, Asia and China are seriously looking at adopting Linux for a variety of reasons and this is starting the acceptable adoption of Linux, but it will be many years unless cer
Bandwidth usage limitations in the 3rd world (Score:3, Interesting)
Many third world countries has download & upload limitaions on their broadband with no choice of a free unlimited option.
"Sweeping Generalisations" (Score:2)
It's times like these that I begin to realise that at least some of the rather passionate vitriol that I feel towards Stallman himself is misplaced. Most of it more rightfully belongs to his followers; I can honestly say that I've seen Scientologists who were more objective than some of the members of Stallman's cult that I've come across. I've also never really bee
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Ubuntu/Gaming/Tags (Score:2, Funny)
Back on topic, Does anyone seriously have any idea on how to get developers on OpenGL/Linux? I'm crying here at so many missed opportunities to get games on Linux! Are we so ingrained to DirectX that nobody is willing to change directions? Would Linux people pay money for games published in Linux or are there those that t
Its only a matter of time... (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft fans will be quick to point out that gaming isn't there and some will even try the ol' "Plug and Play doesn't work" card.
For gaming it is true that there hasn't been a large enough adoption of Linux for most companies to make the investment. As Linux continues to be adopted I suspect that more companies will feel that there is a market to be tapped.
The "Plug and Play doesn't work" card is a farce. The vast majority of hardware works right out of the box. Most of the time I find it easier to get hardware working with Linux than with Windows. With Windows I always spend a lot of extra time loading drivers that came on separate media (If I can find them). More and more manufacturers are including Linux drivers and as the popularity of Linux grows it just gets better.
So for Windows fans: You may not like Linux but Linux's time is coming. So if you don't want to join the party fine but stop trying to throw a turd in our punchbowl.
Great however, (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh, Canadians (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
A awful lot of people have never heard of Linux nor do they know that there is anything other than Windows.
If they start hearing about something which doesnt have the pitfalls of Windows then it will be very interesting.
Also there is the people who think its a nerds only OS (e.g. my mother). When they start seeing in mainstream media they may want to look in to it.
As it stands right now, I dont have a snowball's chance in hell of getting my mum to switch.
It was hard enough getting her to use Firefox.
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Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of that stuff simply isn't true. Hardware generally works and the proprietary 3D drivers have perfectly good 3D performance. It's true that Windows software like games doesn't work, but that should be pretty obvious - no one gets confused or complains when their Mac won't run some Windows app, an Ubuntu system is the same.
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Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, most people don't use their PCs for games. Hell, I've got a really nice rig with a pretty high end video card, and even I mostly use my PS2 when I want games. It's simply easier not having to deal with Computer-isms. I pop the game in, it works. Windows can't compete.
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Probably the ones who takes stability over 3D acceleration. Remember, your kernel is unsupported with those nvidia/fglrx drivers loaded.
Of course, if you want 3D, the drivers are necessary for all nvidia and all newer ATI (after 9x00?)
Btw, did you know that linux support more hardware than any other OS out of the box? :)
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That is the impression I have had but I am unaware of anyone confirming it to be a fact. I have certainly noticed that in most cases all the hardware in a system is supported, detected, and installed under linux unless it is the latest hardware.
I remember when it was only kudzu that seemed to work well for auto-detecting hardware with other detection systems like that used in Mandrake vastly inferior. Now it doesn't really
Re:default 3D (Score:2)
I am an old git who has used micro$oft products from dos 3.3 on, but never a unix system, so i am floundering somewhat with the permissions, filesystem structure etc if it doesn't work 'out of the box' (yay for knoppix, DSL and Freespire).
Yes, Freespire found my n
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It's good that freespire finally had the drivers pre-installed, but if that wasn't the case, what would you have done? Downloaded another 10 distributions?
Sun Tzu says you must win the victory before winning the battle. Installing 10 or more different distributions to solve your own technical inability to get the video drivers installe
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote: "no one gets confused or complains when their Mac won't run some Windows app, an Ubuntu system is the same."
You've obviously never met someone who's used only windows and switches to anything else for the first time. I worked in a school for two years, while there I was repeatedly asked why application XYZ wasn't installed on the mac laptops the school had. They have quite a surprised look on their face when I inform them that without emulation software there is no way to run windows applications on mac's (and then I have to explain what emulation software is and why we didn't have it... but that's a longer story).
Same goes for Linux. Principal hears "school ABC is running their Terminal Services network on Linux and having less problems than we are, why aren't we doing that too?!?!". After getting in contact with the school and finding out exactly what they were doing I found out they didn't even have Terminal Services, and they only had one Linux box. The PDC was Linux with a bunch of fat XP clients. But that's not the point is it? The point is that roughly half of the uneducated users I have every met don't have the slightest clue that there's any more difference between OS X and XP than there is between XP and 2000, so why on earth would they expect that their applications wont all run Linux?
For further proof just look at Linux is NOT Windows [oneandoneis2.org]. If everyone knows that Windows applications will not run on Linux why did that ever need to be written?
I live in Australia, I suppose it is possible users are better educated elsewhere in the world, but I doubt it.
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Boy, I wish that were true. I've done somewhere between 30 and 60 Linux installs in the past 10 years and I have NEVER had every hardware device work in the PC without tinkering. But Unbuntu has fixed all that? No, it has not. I installed Kunbuntu last week on an AcerPower 1000. It detected the Broadcom wireless, but installed a generic broadxx driver that does not work. Took me about 9 hours to find, deceipher, and install ndiswrapper and Windows drivers -- which at th
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
I've yet to meet a USB Scanner, External Disk, Digital Camera, or Name-brand Printer that didn't Just Work with Ubuntu. Maybe you've got some obscure edge case device that doesn't work, but they mostly just do.
I plug and unplug network cables all the time. This is probably a feature of Network-Manager - I'm pretty sure it was enabled by default in Edgy. Dunno, but it's definitely enabled by default in Feisty Beta and it's running great on my Edgy laptop and I don't remember any effort installing it.
Wait... which first person shooters run on Linux that you'd expect to work on an embedded 4 generation old Radeon card? Quake III should run fine with the "radeon" drivers.
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I'm running Fedora Core so maybe I'm ignorant here... I have a six colour Canon i960 that prints beautiful photos. How can I access driver specific features such as photo printing and borderless printing? Canon itself makes some nice unitilities for photo printing and their driver itself decides when it's a photo to use the photo ink tanks.
I have yet to be able to find a photo printing ut
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Check Epson brand scanners. They seem to change their interface more slowly than the other manufacturers and therefore release a lot of scanners that are immediately supported with no extra work by the Sane developers.
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Oh, like this one:
http://tremulous.net/ [tremulous.net]
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My Epson CX3800 scanner/printer and Sansa c250 DAP disagree. In fact, the first one isin't even PnP in windows.
"I can't plug in ethernet after having turned the computer on"
In Feisty, thanks to network-manager, that's all handled for you, without a reboot
"1st person shooters are totally out of the question"
id Software and Epic Games would like to have a word with you
Stop underselling Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Is sweeping your computer for malware with several programs more tolerable? How about slowing it down in general with virus detection. How about running all these programs and still having crap slip through?
You can make Windows secure, but default it isn't. Windows is not some magical utopia where everything works - it is work but people don't recognize it as such - instead it becomes an "inevitable" task - like having to defrag the drive is normal chore on Windows given hardly a thought "why am I doing this crap?"
I think many in the Linux community are selling Linux short by problems that were issues 3 or 4 years ago but not so much today. The last few people I switched were people who had malware infested Windows computers almost beyond repair and they wanted Linux for several reasons - I was asked to help them put it on there, they even specified Ubuntu. These are not computer people.
Most of their printers work seamlessly. Their cameras work seamlessly. Their MFCs work for the most part - though there was one that was a pain in the ass to install for no reason (looking at you brother).
And games? Many don't play games in the first place though I keep their Windows partition around just in case. One guy plays flash games on line a lot - no linux barrier there.
Linux is truly good enough for a large segment of the population out there.
Only disagree with one point (Score:5, Insightful)
Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work
I like the gist of what you're saying, but I think this point is a moot one. Vista has plenty of incompatibilites. [pcworld.com]
And sadly, it'll wind up being the best selling OS of al time, most likely.
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I can say this much about the Linux kernel -- I've never had a piece of hardware I was currently using deprecated by a new revision of the kernel. That said, fuck ATI, because they straight deprecated my Radeon 9000, which is why Nvidia gets my business till they screw me likewise because
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The average computer user doesn't buy PC games from CompUSA, or much of anywhere else for that matter. If they do games, it'll be PS2 or XBox games they pick up at BestBuy or Walmart.
Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work.
Out of the box, Linux supports more devices than any other OS. Those that it doesn't are unlikely to be supported by any other OS out
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You say that because you play games. Most adults do not play video games on their computer. At least beyond simple 2D games and card games and any Linux distro includes dozens more of those than windows.
'Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work.'
That doesn't really work under windows either. It's
Happens in Windows too. (Score:2)
It happens on windows too.
Except that under linux, the drivers are just missing. You could either return the item to the shop or ask some geek friend to come and compile latest reverse-engineered drivers from sourceforge.net that didn't make it yet to distribution.
Whereas in windows, the driver for that incredibly-cheap "no-name" printer you found on discount for only a couple of buck, happens to be written by some obscure korea
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I'm pretty confident that my mother has never played a game on her computer. In fact, she's never installed any software without my assistance or the assistance of one of my sisters. All she cares about is that she has a computer that does what the computer lab machines can do so that she can finish her masters without having to live in
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Most people don't buy a PC to play games on. It's cheaper to buy a Wii, Xbox, or PS2/3 then configuring a game system. Like the Mac most games are acquired online rather than a store.
Or until they try plugging in an arbitrary device and find that it doesn't work.
I guess you don't have a Linux system. Most hardware problems are due to the manufacturer. Chances are that if there is poor support for Mac and Linux then they have poor suppor
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I don't know about that. Most times I go into Best Buy the games are already segregated by platform: Xbox, PS2, Nintendo-whatever, PC, Mac. I think that so long as Linux is positioned as a separate platform people will understand that it is neither Mac nor Windows.
Back when I got my first computer, the stores even had separate shelve
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Linux: "pitfall free!!" (Score:2)
> Windows then it will be very interesting."
I hope you'll be there as "tech support" when they try to install Messenger and a webcam to do what millions of other Windows users are already doing.
And I hope you'll be there to drop down to single user mode and use vi fix their xorg.conf file and recompile the webcam driver after they install a patch.
etc., etc.
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Funny)
And she even ripped her old vinyl collection to digital formats; a feat even I don't know how to do as cleanly as she did.
Besides, she doesn't watch porn (as far as I know), so WMV support is worthless to her (which is the only situation where I've seen WMV used frequently that isn't restricted with DRM).
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My grandmother (both of them) is dead, you insensitive clod. My mom was programming computers before PCs were invented and my little sister is a software consultant.
Yeah, I think it's ready for them.
If you don't know what you're doing, then no OS is easy and you spend your time trying to figure out how to do the simplest things. Once you've done that, it's not difficult. OTOH, if you do know a bit about the OS (whether Windows or 'n
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:4, Interesting)
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Yeah, that's me. I'm the guy my buddies call when OMG WINDOWS EXPLODE. I'm kinda tired of it, and I've started using Ubuntu at home. I really like it, and aside from the plethora of Windows games it does everything I need and more. To be fair
Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:5, Interesting)
You know what? She prefers linux. Can use linux. Doesn't become frustrated with Linux.
She scoffs at Windows now.
I don't know this average computer user you speak of, but the one I know well coped just fine with using Ubuntu.
Don't be so sure (Score:3, Informative)
What is interesting is that he has installed Linux on computers of over a dozen other friends of his. Most of these ppl are also retired pilots who were using windows for simple web surfing, and handling of bank and retireme
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See: http://goodbye-microsoft.com/ [goodbye-microsoft.com]
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Re:Boy, THIS one is easy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft's monopoly has actually made this sort of mindset easier to cater to, since hardware manufacturers and software programmers only need to deal with one operating system. Linux, meanwhile, has continued to lag behind in hardware and software support because of this.
So you're right, they may ask for Linux if they see enough coverage about it. But until Linux can (relatively) painlessly run everything people want to run on it, they will not stick with it, and they will certainly not evangelize it to their friends.
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No, they treat their computers like they treat their furnace: it should just work. Like it or not, Mom and Pop expect their computer to work like an appliance: it should do what it's supposed to do, and they shouldn't have to fiddle with it. Maybe it will break once every 5 or 10 years, but other than that it should basically do what I want it to do with a minimum of hassle. Mom and Pop are not tinkerers, they just want shit to work and not require any extra time or effort to operate.b
No offense, but I don't know what kind of computing world you where a basic Windows install "just works" for the average user. If you mean "just work" as in "I can install a lot of crap on it", it sure goes well. But I can't remember the number of times I've been called to clean spyware and junk and make it start up in less than 5 minutes due to registry bloat.
The average Windows installation lasts about 9 months. That's how long it takes for it to break down due to registry bloat, trojans, adware, and a
learned helplessness (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me get this straight, you're suggesting Windows is like that? I can understand people not switching to Linux just because they read a glowing review on the CBC site, but I don't understand their not wanting to escape from Windows and from the shit they seem to regard as normal. I think it may be due to some form of learned helplessness [wikipedia.org] syndrome.
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"Windows applications don't run on Linux"
You'd be surprised. Even Internet Explorer runs under linux. [tatanka.com.br]
This week another developer installed suse 10.3 alpha 1 on his dual-lcd box at work - all his Windows apps work - and one of them works better under linux than it does under Windows. Plus he now has access to a lot of stuff that just isn't available under Windows.
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What?
Why???
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Actually, I believe it's for web developers to test their sites in IE without having to use Windows. Also, if you want to test websites in more than one version of IE, you can either use Linux or have several different versions of Windows running their own versions of IE.
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True, no guarantees, but in my experience that kind of Windows software tends to run better on WINE than the high end packages, because the programmers stuck closer to the most commonly used APIs. Its the high end packages that use some of the obscure API corners that have
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Ubuntu is easily as ready for the desktop and the "typical user" as Windows is. Your specific problems with wireless connectivity are completely resolved, as long as you manage to chose supported hardware.
Re:Is Ubuntu ready really? (Score:4, Informative)
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3/5 of my family are female. We use Linux (Ubuntu 6.10 for them, 7.04 for me). I'm the only one who knows anything about computers, and I am not sitting there babysitting it and playing admin. I'm 250 miles away with no SSH setup to do things for them. They function just fine on their own. All I did was install it (hit next 6 times) then tell it to download the DVD and MP3 codecs and installed a few games I thought my brother and sister would like. By the way, thi
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As for end user re-installs of windows they are even worse, and I will only spend the hours required to fix them if I am paid, honestly it is far qui
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_L_Word [wikipedia.org]
Yes free software is better than Vista. (Score:3, Informative)
See for yourself in this blow by blow install and feature compare. [desktoplinux.com] Summary here [slashdot.org]. A lack of drivers and compatibility were only the start of the author's problems which digital restrictions greatly multiplied.
As usual, the Microsoft story is worse than you would expect.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The screens aren't blue enough yet.
and they're still working on getting the security holes wide enough.
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Yes I would agree that "except for driving in snow" is a good analogy. I live in the tropics.
Most people I know do not play games (of the sort we are talking about) on their PCs. In fact, thinking through my friends and family, I know only one gamer.
They might play solitaire or soduku, thats it.
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Re:Linux is like Mac's older pot smoking brother. (Score:2)
For that matter, if you're a good grandson you've already got her using thunderbitd and firefox, so you're using the exact same applications.
Honestly, there are good reasons not to use Linux(The robustness and nearly 100% coverage in terms of drivers are two important ones), but web browsing and e-mail aren't two of them. I'm not sure about printing, I don't have a printer. Not huge
Re: (Score:2)
I have been using Ubuntu since Hedgehog on two different computers, each with an ATI card. I have never had a problem with ATI video cards. BUT I have not tried 3d or TV cards.
Linux with an ATI card is a fine experience. But with 3d or TV, you may have a problem.