Comments on: The Truth About Linux

By: Zorklat DeOrc

Zorklat DeOrc — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 17:40:52 +0000

JasonK: I know I’m late to the party, but check out openSUSE’s 1-Click Install YAST Meta-Packages.

It’s an exaggeration, of course. You search for the package on the openSUSE website, click the 1-click install link, agree to the license, agree that you trust the repository, and wait a few minutes. And then you’re done. But in this manner I’ve installed nVidia drivers, Battle for Wesnoth, a bunch of KDE eyecandy, and a few other things.

By: Drycola

Drycola — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 22:19:00 +0000

Yes it is, I use Linux most of the time for Desktop, it is ready people!

By: Jim O

Jim O — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:35:47 +0000

One word, Games!
If I go down to my local Best Buy, Game Stop, ect. I do not see anything published for Linux.
When I can drop a copy of Call to Duty on a Linux box, then we can talk.

By: Andy Rondeau

Andy Rondeau — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:17:41 +0000

I recently played with two Myth-TV oriented Linux distros from within VMware Fusion. The first one that I tried refused to boot upon installation. The second one that I tried booted; however, I couldn’t connect to shared folders on my Mac. The instructions were downright confusing; and I really have no desire to spend 3-4 hours figuring out how to do what’s trivial under Mac or Windows. I think Linux will take off on the desktop when a major PC vendor dedicates resources to making good version of Linux. This is what happened when Apple dedicated resources to cleaning up Next and BSD to make Mac OS.

By: Sunny Guy

Sunny Guy — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 12:09:20 +0000

Hey, if you subtract off the computer geek crowd, the use of desktop Linux
approaches zero. People who have other things to do use Macs (or Windows
if they don’t know better).

openSolaris started off way behind, but it may yet make up the difference.

But I’m glad there’s a Linux OS — it keeps everyone else honest.

Sunny Guy

By: WilR

WilR — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 05:15:43 +0000

I love linux, and i’m an open source advocate. But i’ve tried so many distros and failed horribly at fixing any of the problems by myself that i just gave up.

By: IcePanther

IcePanther — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 10:53:52 +0000

I use Linux at the university, a fairly recent Debian. I also use Ubuntu from time to time. And I disagree it’s easy for “mainstream” market, which includes, among other things : A high number of newbies, people who use Windows at work and ‘just want to open their word files’, and newbie gamers.

First :
An OS where you frequently have to use command-line to do something (and, even in the latest Ubuntu, I’ve had to, even for benign tasks) is not suitable for newbie people. Linus is still too difficult to use .

Regarding software installation : Package managers like Synaptic have made software installation easy, but it’s not quite there yet. As said the previous poster, you can’t yet cjust “double click” on an installer package for it to install. Plus, depending on the distro you use, you have to use .deb or .rpm packages (ex. on the internet), many users won’t know what to choose. And they often don’t install “launchers”, so there, command line again.

Second : Software quality / usability.
While I completely understand “free” development by community is slower than commercial, what said the previous poster is true, too. People just want the thing to work. And when OpenOffice borks a well-crafted page setup with graphics and stuff, for instance, or when the *same version* of Flash works on Windows but not Linux, it’s just annoying. I know why this is as it is, but typical users may not, and just get pissed at the thing, because “it worked in windows and not in linux !”.

For instance, mother. She uses the computer for accessing the Internet, buying things online, using Yahoo! webmail, and word. And a few games. I tried, telling myself she didn’t need XP (her pc is quite old) for that usage, to install Ubuntu 8.04 (at the time, was the latest one). She got confused by the menus, said Firefox didn’t behave the same (I suspect she was just trhown off by the different skin) and OpenOffice… I won’t start on that topic, but back to XP for her. Sometimes people just have difficulties at learning, so they’ll stick with windows.

Usability is still, IMO, Linux hasn’t achieved properly yet.

Last but not least, software : As it has been said many times before… On Linux, no games (actually, very few) will run natively (without an emulator). Drivers have poor support, and hardware detection as a whole is not there yet, especially on laptops, which represent a growing part of the market. So that’s another market slice that won’t move to Linux. And the same goes for Adobe product users, MS Office users, and so on.

So, apart from server markets where Linux is well established (being used only by educated IT people, and running specific software such as Apache, which exists on all platforms) I think it will take quite a few time for Linux to really take off on the desktop market.

I must agree, though, it has evolved much from the time I first tested it, approximately eight years ago, but it’s still not quite there yet. Only the future will tell.

By: JasonK

JasonK — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 23:44:13 +0000

I use Linux, but I disagree with the people who insist that it is now “easy” for typical users. Your typical user will not know how to set it up, nor will they be able to go through all the different arcane methods that exist to install software.

Contrary to what Linux enthusiasts say; it is not easier to install Linux than Windows. That is ludicrous. When you can double click on an icon to install all your Linux applications, then it will have made another step forward.

Linux has been around for 17 years and still boasts less than 1 percent market share (somewhere around 0.94), and that is with all 28,000 “distros” of Linux combined. Normal people don’t want to learn about a million different versions of the same thing.

Also, normal users don’t want to join a cult/religious/political movement. They don’t care about Open Source philosophy. They want their computers to work without spending months trying to configure things.

Google’s Linux-based Android OS could have a good shot at going mainstream, as it is now being tested for “netbook” use.

Mac OS X is a similar situation to what Android could become. Apple took BSD Unix, made it easy to use and shiny, and it is seen as a viable Windows alternative. Google could potentially do the same thing

By: Dave Bergschneider

Dave Bergschneider — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:55:47 +0000

These day linux installation is rather easy however its built in support for third party hardware is still lacking. I was able to run Linux from disc without any problems however I’ve noticed that when I installed it, all of a sudden none of my nVidia drivers weren’t supported nor was my dual monitor setup which throws a huge kink in my productivity. That and I had to spend many hours googling to figure out how to get my Adobe suite to work with only a limited function set.

By: argonsassistant

argonsassistant — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:45:14 +0000

HOLY MOLY,My my comments gonnal look small compared to everyone else but here goes…Very funny and all so true,thats all I have to say heee!
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