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Comment by lambada | Hacker News Reader

"I don’t think Linux is it, because there are a few good distributions that actually are user-friendly, but at its core it’s made by nerds for nerds. For people who understand computers, it’s awesome, because you can control the entire computer. For corporations or families, it’s not really what they want. They just want to be able to use the computer in an easy way". This sums up my thoughts on Linux - yes, I consider myself a geek, but at the end of the day, for >90% of my computing needs I just want something that works. I find the idea of Linux awesome, and my web-dev work relies on it, but for my general computer it just isn't what's needed.

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I don't understand this reasoning. No one forces you to compile from source or even use the terminal. Likewise no one needs to touch the Windows registry or firewall settings if they don't want to.

There's a distro for almost everything and there's certainly one for the unassuming family PC - Ubuntu. It passes the "Mom test" for me and keeps my technology hesitant mother very happy. Email, web browsing, online banking, photo sharing, printing/scanning just works. If anything it's easier than "that Windows thing" (as she describes it). The Dash in Unity and the Launcher 'just work' and have made computing a much more pleasant experience for her. With the exception of very occasional hardware support issues (I change printers maybe every 2 years) it's more than convinced me Ubuntu is a very viable family OS.

Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke after an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine). What is the incentive for the average user? They already have a computer that came with Windows for 'free'. Tablets are many times simpler than either Ubuntu or Windows.

Under which distro did your GRUB break?

Anyway, Ubuntu has become the norm in my parents household. Yes, a new laptop or computer will come with Windows pre-installed, but what happens when you need to reinstall windows? This happens more than one may think. You have to worry about installing those darn drivers off the DVD that laptop came with (sometimes, it won't even come with a Windows DVD).

For my Mother this is not going to go over too well. In fact this happened and she spent an afternoon trying to install her new system. Enter Ubuntu -> Stuck in the USB key, filled in user info, clicked on what timezone to use and everything else was smooth as butter. No driver install disks. Everything just worked.

Sure, mileage may vary among the newest and greatest hardware. I'll grant that. However, those same new systems come with driver CD's coupled with a lot of useless software that just so happens to be checked for install by default.

What happens when you need to reinstall Windows? You use the restore disc that they give you with all the drivers installed. It comes with them more often than one may think.

More seriously though, I don't know a huge bunch about drivers on Linux. What makes Ubuntu better than Windows and the array of drivers it comes with?

Ubuntu has most of the drivers included in the kernel, while windows installs new drivers as needed. For normal computer use, this is an icon in the taskbar saying 'installing device drivers', but when you are on a fresh install, you need to install them yourself.

I recently reinstalled my Dell Inspiron 1420 (after having deleted the recovery partition). They did provide a drivers cd, but I had to click through them 1 at a time.

Obviously, this isn't Microsofts fault, as they do not have the rights to most of the drivers, but in Linux, the norm is to GPL drivers, and put them in mainline kernel, where they will be enabled on all general purpose distributions.

Hadn't thought about the impact driver licences have on their integration with the kernel. Cheers.

"Even if that were true (which I dispute, even in recent weeks GRUB broke after an upgrade on my Linux machine, resulting in an unbootable machine)."

I'm glad it's not just me.

Last year, I installed Ubuntu Linux via WUBI. After an update, some GRUB/kernel incompatibility left Ubuntu Linux unbootable. (At least, after far too much research, my best estimate was that it was a GRUB/kernel incompatibility.)

I was laughed at for using WUBI at all, and in shame, decided to install Ubuntu Linux in a dual boot configuration. Which worked... for a while.

At some point, Ubuntu Linux offered to upgrade itself to a newer version. It failed part way through with some obscure error message, and left Ubuntu Linux... you guessed it... unbootable.

Once again, I was laughed at. "Everyone knows you shouldn't try to upgrade Ubuntu Linux; do a fresh install instead." sigh

Also, Ubuntu Linux got fat (for lack of a better word). In the past, I could count on Ubuntu Linux to extend the life of old hardware, but frankly, modern versions do not appear to perform any better than Windows 7.

All of these problems, and Ubuntu Linux is supposed to be the easy distribution? For now, I've given up, and I'm back on Windows 7, which hasn't caused me any trouble.

This is one of the reasons I stick to LTS releases (Long Term Support). The releases between LTS are sort of "unstable" in comparison (for a lack of a better way of putting it).

Personally, I have had no issues upgrading from one LTS to another LTS system.

I agree, however, that there should be more work done on the upgrade system. It is a sort 50/50 in a lot of peoples eyes.

With that said: Ubuntu is not the only distro out there that is easy to use. There are other distro's out there that are built on Ubuntu - Linux Mint, Xubuntu, Kubuntu etc. etc. etc. - that may be more suitable for some people. With Ubuntu 12.04, things are really starting to look up. It is becoming a rather nice, usable system, regardless of the controversy of Unity. Yes, there are issues with 12.04 right now. For instance OpenGL performance under Unity is bad. With Steam coming on board, I will bet it will be fixed in due time.

Anyway, yes issues are still around. Though, really, it isn't as bad as your luck, I guess? I don't mean that in any condescending way, of course. I just think perhaps you might want to take another gander at it some time.

I've had a lot of success forcing my parents to Linux. I used to waste a lot of time helping them with technical problems. It was usually viruses, anti viruses or sneak ware causing problem. After Linux they have no more need for me and do all they need. My last victim was my girlfriend, if you ask her what her OS is, she has no clue. But she still use face book, games and "the spread sheet thing" with no problem.

I'm sure not only Linux has become user friendly enough for main stream. But it's actually the best option for it. Maybe losing to chrome books, I still have to try those out.

Well -- that ratio of systems to users to supportive personal is 1:2:1 in your house. That ratio is incredible, give me a company of 50 people with 25 PCs and 25 IT people and I could get them running on nearly anything.

Now, start over and format your mothers computer hand her a Linux disk and refuse to help -- now you have a better idea what the "average" user would experience.

I agree with you regarding the support ratio but disagree with you that Windows is necessarily easier to install on a blank machine.

I think that an uninformed user would probably struggle just as much with a blank computer and a Windows install disk as a blank computer and a Linux install disk. In fact, I'd argue that right now some distributions of Linux may even have the advantage since it gets used in that context far more often (most people have Windows pre-installed).

I suspect we may need a scientific test to know for sure.

Certainly.

But a user that's a tiny bit above average can (I hope) probably google around to find a screencast or article about how to isntall Windows XP, Vista, 7 or 8. It's a million times easier, because the options are limited (just a few Windows versions are around).

On the other hand, we have millions of Linux distros, with folks like Ubuntu giving out new versions on a quarterly basis and often change, move or tweak small things in the installation panels which makes it very hard for the non-geek user to install, say, 12.04 if they're watching a YouTube video about how to install Ubuntu 11.10.

I absolutely hate Windows, but sadly it's much more user friendly than Linux. Thankfully, OS X is still around.

I'm not saying that I disagree with the general assessment (right now), but the line of reasoning is a bit odd. "At its core"? Well, the GNOME people did get quite a bit flack for ignoring the nerdy needs. Or are we talking technical terms? OS X is based on unix underpinnings, too. I'd argue that even Windows isn't as un-nerdy as some people might think. Most people aren't too happy about using it beyond what their work required, and then to a very superficial degree (browsers + media). (His target demographic of gamers being one noticeable exception)

That's one of the reason why mobile devices (phones/tablets) are so popular, they're basically the first un-nerdy computing devices.

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