Linux to spend eternity in shadow of 'little blue E'

We are developing a web portal for the med students at our school (tmedweb.tulane.edu).

Firefox: 48.8% IE: 32% Safari: 16.3% Chrome: 3%

IE would loose even more if the library wasn't full of MSFT Dells.

My wife uses Ubuntu on her laptop. It was quite painful to get started with it two years ago, but she had already been using OpenOffice (which was her choice, because she refused to buy MSFT Office and was prepared to use a text editor until I showed her OpenOffice). That would have been a huge leap, except she was already using Firefox. Which just wasn't all that big a leap.

We installed Ubuntu dual-boot because she could never get on the wireless network at work and I'd always come in, get on the network with my laptop, and then go online and look for how to fix her Windows problem. So she wanted to give that a try. And she didn't want to get on the internet. She really just wanted to send stuff to the printer.

She hasn't booted into windows in over a year. Totally her choice.

Now her girlfriends at work (~20 employees, 90% women, everyone uses their own laptop) are asking her questions about why her windows wobble and how it is she can fetch documents from home, and how to they get their wireless networks to pop out of a widget at the top.

Our kids have had more exposure to Linux than to Windows. My wife also uses her laptop to set up a movie for them to watch (the Smurfs and Bob the Builder are their favorites), when we drive to my parents' house (8 hours away). They play Sesame Street Workshop, Starfall, whatever.

Time. It takes time. Measured on a generational scale.

I think those complaining about Linux in the desktop being in shadow are missing the point. They are always implying that the problem is people being stupid, or the costs of retraining being high, or evil Microsoft's marketing, or sysadmins trained in Microsoft stuff that don't want to change...

Face it... Linux is hard. I am close to a Ph.D. in CS, have spent years programming in several languages on different operating systems, I'm a geek that tries out new Linux distros just for fun, and I still find it very hard to make them work. I always find myself recompiling the kernel, sound drivers, etc from sources. I always have to turn off automatic updates, because they always screw up the installation - this kind of badness simply doesn't exist on Windows.

The simple, dumb Windows model of software installation, where the vendor is responsible for providing a working self-installer, and every program occupies its own directory, just seems so much better than the intricate repositories of Linux distros, which you cannot bypass without risk of screwing up your system.

I like Linux and I will keep playing with it, but I'm not surprised by its minimal share in the desktop world.

The Register occasionally publishes a Windows vs Linux article that is simple trolling. The Inquirer is even better because they troll Windows advocates as well (this is presumably their idea of balanced reporting).

The give aways that this is a troll: "Users aren't stupid. They just have better shit to do than learn C++ programming or tinker around with FreeBSD.". How is this relevant. My wife, my daughter, my father and my daughter's former pre-school principal all use Linux. None know what C++ is, only my father has more than a very vague idea ("its something they use to make programs") of what a programming language is.

"How do I PivotTable in OpenOffice?": The average user does not use pivot tables, or Visual Basic for Applications. In the average working environment only "the guy who knows about computers" (there is usually one per department) uses the "advanced" stuff.

"To the average user, the computer is a means to an end.". We knew that, but it does not automatically follow that they will always regard Windows as the best means to the end. People pay a premium for Macs that are more different from Windows than the default Gnome or KDE configs are.

Employees cannot choose the software they use. Much of it is unfamiliar to new staff. Anyone here ever used SAP? Oracle Applications?

Yes, there's the blue W and the green X. But for some reason Microsoft decided to take all the familiarity away from people in Office 2007. They have replaced all the menus, dialog boxes, names, icons, etc, with something completely new and unfamiliar.

No, not just different menu items or toolbox buttons, they have replaced these familiar controls themselves with a huge splurge of alien somethings that cover about a quarter of the screen with even more bloat than there was before.

In the next few years, companies will have to answer one question: Does it cost more to retrain our staff in Office 2007 and pay for the new version, or does it cost more to train them in OpenOffice and pay nothing for the software? Some may even ask whether something like google apps isn't sufficient.

The real issues are not familiarity or cost. The real issue is file formats and macros and glue code that companies rely on, and the fact that Microsoft shops have Microsoft trained and Microsoft loyal sysadmins who are anything but convinced of Linux superiority. They're not going to install Linux for you upon request. That's fantasy land.

I don't get why all the responses are basically, "this guy's a jerk and is completely wrong." No, he isn't--Linux is still terrifying black magic to most of the general population. But, this article _says exactly how to fix that!_ You have to go after the perceptions around computing, and change the way people view computers. The author is absolutely right that on average, PC == Windows. However usable Ubuntu is won't change that. It's basically attacking the wrong problem, but it _is_ possible to attack the right problem.

(Intelligent) Trolling usually makes a point; HN should know this. I don't understand why so many people responded saying, "he's wrong, (insert numbers here), cars vs horses" and ignored the valid point he was making. The troll said it was impossible to overtake windows; come on guys, as hackers we should take that as a clue he means it isn't!

Yeah, people will never use cars. When they want to travel somewhere, they expect to saddle up their horse and ride for several days.

Travelers aren't stupid, but they have better things to do than learn how to operate a two-ton mechanical contraption when they already know how to ride a horse.

I can't tell, is this satire? I really hope it is... if not, then wow. I mean, is he debating the merits of operating systems by familiarity? The people he's talking about can't remember what they did in Word yesterday, so why would it make a difference if they changed the program. The argument is weak.

I'm not with him 100% but he does have a point. I know too many people who think that "little blue e" is the internet.

From the article:

>Users aren't stupid.

So don't act like they are. A already setup Linux machine is in fact more usable than a random Windows machine.

I started using Linux when I was 13 and I hardly knew anything about computers except playing games and using a browser. I was impressed by the functionality and elegance of the KDE desktop that the then popular Knoppix CD provided. There were a lot of cool stuff you could do without much hassle (except playing games) more accessibly than Windows and it got me hooked. Also there weren't viruses and anti-virus software so I felt I could safely mess around and install stuff. My younger sister (she was in the first grade) also enjoyed drawing on the computer and my mom didn't mind using Mozilla to use the Web.

Even a 5-10 years ago Linux was very usable and stable. Hardware support was I guess spottier but if someone gave you a configured system you would enjoy it. Thats why I think vendors should concentrate on improving and polishing existing releases, proving support for many applications. It would be very good if RedHat started supporting desktop machines for the retail market, maybe using resellers to protect the RedHat brand. I wish CentOS had the same huge Desktop community like Ubuntu does. Regular users don't have to endure the growing pains of Linux.

Also I hope appliances running on a virtual machine like Xen would spread. Virtualisation is the true path to reliability and IBM for example figured that out back in the seventies. The desktop Linux should not try to emulate windows machines but turn-key IBM ones. We have the processing power, the memory and the storage to do it so why not?

Linux fails because the creators are too arrogant. They want people to switch, but remember, those people were doing fine before you came along. If you want people to switch, compell them with something they want. All linux gives is problems and headaches. Even though I am a developer, I have never had to use the internals of linux, so the fact that it is open source is irrelevant.

What really kills linux is just the arrogance of the developers.