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Comment by MisterWebz | Hacker News Reader

I've been having a lot of problems with Ubuntu. First of all, wireless on Ubuntu sucks. I can't be bothered reading tons of articles on how to fix wireless, i just want it to work like it does on Windows. Ubuntu doesn't detect a few of my webcams. I can't even install Ubuntu 10.04 on my new laptop (though it seems they're busy fixing it), so i'm stuck with 9.04. I'm also having some trouble with Chrome on Ubuntu, but i should probably blame Chrome for that. Rebooting on Ubuntu doesn't even work. I can only shut it down. I could probably fix it in a timely fashion, but i don't see why it broke in the first place. I've never had any trouble with Windows of this kind.

Anyway, It's still a great OS, but there's no way the average computer user is going to be satisfied with Ubuntu unless the developers somehow fix these little annoyances.

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There's no way the "average computer user" is going to be satisfied with an operating system that doesn't come preinstalled on their computer, that isn't officially supported by the manufacturer of their computer, and that they consequently have to deal with the various possible technical problems of.

Non-technical users don't install operating systems.

Ubuntu is the closest candidate to fixing the structural problem of "very few computers come preinstalled with a supported, free-as-in-freedom operating system". Until that problem is fixed, and as long as people are ending up having to install an operating system on arbitrary computers with millions of different hardware combinations, such annoyances will continue at some level.

>Non-technical users don't install operating systems.

Look, this is probably generally true - however, the last bare metal Ubuntu install I did was as simply as insert disc, click the install prompts, accept all defaults and your done. Yeah, it took an hour or two all told.

It certainly has been quite different in the past but any user that can watch a DVD on their computer can install an [selected] OS if they want to.

Hardware compatibility is another question. If the manufacturers would just test and have a "Ubuntu ready" label then that issue would be largely moot, at least as much so as with MS Windows.

I do agree that unless you're particularly unlucky hardware-wise, an Ubuntu installation is more likely to succeed nowadays than fail. But they may be able to survive the installation, yet end up with minor to moderate problems that degrade the entire experience, which wouldn't be there, had their operating system been preinstalled, tested and supported with their hardware.

The question of hardware compatibility and other technicalities aside, the entire notion of the "operating system" being decoupled from the computer and installable separately is alien to most non-technical computer users, and the idea of installing a "third party" operating system is simply uninteresting; which is why I said "don't", not "can't". Why should they, when they already bought a computer with an "operating system", and it largely works?

My point is that the "download an .iso file from the internet, burn a CD / flash disk and install something called an operating system" model, while it's largely successful for the audience it's intended for today, is not way to advance the use of free operating systems in the broader computing ecosystem; striving towards more viable and widespread Linux-preinstalled devices is. But surely the success of the former will reinforce the latter, since a critical mass is needed.

The drivers problems are a manufacturer problem, not Ubuntu's. Complain against the manufacturer, so that they know that people actually want linux drivers. Vote with your wallet, buy linux compatible hardware. Don't blame Ubuntu for others' mistakes.

Sure, i might have unnecessarily blamed Ubuntu, but it's still a problem that needs to be fixed. And as long as that problem exists, i won't recommend Ubuntu to the average computer user.

Why? The "average computer user" is precisely the kind of person who is likely to have commodity hardware that is supported by Ubuntu. Would you not recommend it because you can't guarantee that Ubuntu will work with all her hardware? If that's the problem, then what would you recommend? Can you guarantee that some other OS supports every piece of hardware she owns? Or are you holding Ubuntu to a higher standard?

If the answer is simply that you believe another OS will support more (though maybe not all) of her hardware, why not at least recommend that she get a Live CD, try it and see? Then she can weigh for herself the benefits of a (mostly) Free software OS against the extra cost of getting her hardware to work, instead of just accepting your guess that it's not worth it.

Because the average user just wants his computer to work, he doesn't want to try something unfamiliar and risk doing even more work to get the computer working. Maybe we don't have the same definition for "average user".

Hardware can be expected to work on Windows. If they don't, it's the hardware manufacturer's fault. There might be nothing you can do about it, but it's their fault. They manufacturers are expected to support Windows. If hardware doesn't work on Ubuntu, it's your fault for installing an unsupported system.

> Hardware can be expected to work on Windows. If they don't, it's the hardware manufacturer's fault.

Sorry, this is an unreasonable expectation, and one that should be corrected, not reinforced. The "average user" has no right to expect that an operating system should work with any and all hardware, simply because one operating system has a monopoly position with respect to users and a monopsony-ish position with respect to hardware makers. It hurts all computer users, and Free software users in particular, when we allow such companies to set our expectations.

Who is this "average computer user"? Anybody that makes the jump to Linux has a reason to(and there many, not just tinkerers), otherwise they stick with a windows machine or pony up for a mac.

That is correct. No hardware will work with every OS. Certain hardware will support certain versions of Ubuntu though. It makes life a lot easier and saves an enormous amount of time if you research what the hardware will support first, and then use the correct hardware and OS combinations. With an unsupported combination sometimes it will look like everything is ok but you will have intermittent problems such as USB ports not working sometimes, or other issues. With the correct combination of hardware Ubuntu will work fine.

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