Reply to Golodh’s Comment (on another site) about my post.
Note:The following is a reply to Golodh’s comment on Mono as Infectious Disease. He is commenting on my post here, Why Linux is Better than Mac. I messed up my comment post (I put <quote> instead of <blockquote>), and couldn’t edit it later, so I re-posted it here. Sorry about the repeat.
Goldoh wrote:
I agree that Macs are best for end-users who want to spent their time working in apps instead of working on aps. There is a niche for this sort of people, and it only comprises about 95% of the market. That doesn’t mean that Linux shouldn’t cater for the remaining 5%, but if it wants to dominate the desktop (something I believe is possible) then it needs to do just as well for those other 95%.
I don’t think Macs are best for “end-users who…etc” – I think Macs are best for you (the family member who is always called for tech support), if you don’t want to deal with their computer issues.
not “interface” or “working on applications” (all of which, in my opinion, are easier and better in Ubuntu w/ Gnome than on either Mac or Windows). No… a new Linux user’s biggest issue is unsupported, killer apps. If you can get iTunes (with DRM and store), Photoshop, and the latest MS Office working on Linux without issues, then users will defect in droves. (I know Wine and Crossover try, but they’re not there yet. (PS: If Mono gets us any closer to that goal, no matter what the patent issues, I say, “hurray!” Quick show of hands, who reading this in the U.S. doesn’t have libdvdcss installed on their boxes? Or paid for mp3 support? Of course, I raised my hand for both, because I think all of these software patents are legit.)
My point about Linux is that there is a natural progression from novice to expert, even for the 95%, and it requires no additional desire or frustration more than what an average user experiences in any operating system. The only difference is, in Linux, users can do something about their negative experiences, and there are tools that are easy to use and people willing to help.
I’m using SuSE linux 11.1 (not Kubuntu) and I have had my share of broken library dependencies. I had never heard of “sudo apt-get build-dep”. My loss apparently, but then I rarely stray beyond the packages that come with the SuSE distribution and can be installed through YAST.
How can I say this politely?… WhyTF are you still using SuSE? SuSE is Diet Windows using Yast as an artificial sweetener. Pick Coke or Pepsi, and drink that! (More like pick corn-starch or sugar sweetened.)
In my opinion, if you are mostly a server guy, you ought to go RedHat/CentOS, just because it is what most people use on servers. If you are mainly doing desktop work, give regular Ubuntu a shot, and then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop once you are used to the “Debian way of doing things.” But I know recommending a distro is “fight’n words”, so I’ll stop now before the entire board comes to give me a beat-down.
This is another problem with Linux: there isn’t just *one* standard package manager that does everything (and does it so well that you never want anything else), there are at least two.
As opposed to Windows and Mac where there are… NONE. If you give Ubuntu a shot, I think apt is what you are looking for. Get all that SuSE junk out of your head. I think the multiple package managers is a very strong advantage for Linux.
The fact that there is “two or three of everything” (KDE and Gnome, yum and apt, rpm and deb, Grub and LILO, ext3 and ReiserFS or whatever is the other one now, Thunderbird and Evolution and Kmail, OpenOffice and KOffice and Gnome loosely affiliated applications) means that there is a rapid pace of innovation between competing communities. Desktop distributions (with the exception of SuSE, which is geared towards Windows Power Users) are very good at hiding the sheer number of choices available to beginning users so they don’t get overwhelmed. If someone hands you an Ubuntu or Mint CD, and you install it, you won’t even know about KDE until you start fiddling around inside the system because you get curious.
I disagree with scottgrizzard about Linux being for users by users though. If you need to get beyond what’s pre-cooked, you’ll need to consult a book like Frish, A. (1995) Essential system administration. O’Reilly & Associates. System administration is never for end-users, and the trick is to ensure you needn’t get involved in it. For better or worse, MS Windows goes further to make sure you don’t have to if you don’t want to.
Yes, in 1995 you needed a book to learn about system administration. Since then, we all got broadband and started blogging/list-serving/wiki-ing night and day (especially night). You don’t need books to learn Linux – what you need is a desire to change something about your system and an Internet connection. (For serious tweaking, a spare box or a virtual machine doesn’t hurt, but only if you are playing with the core system.)
My first admin job was for my apartment complex in grad school. They wanted a Samba Domain Controller (they didn’t know that – what they knew was that the last guy had installed a pirated version of Windows 2000 on their old server which a bolt of lightning had eaten). They gave me a month’s rent free to do it, “for $700 in hardware” when I told them it could be done using free software. I set them up with a SuSE 10.0 Domain Controller that they could manage using webmin. (Yes, I used SuSE at one point, but if you can admit you have a problem, recovery is possible.) It took me two weeks (off and on) to set up, but I did it with the aid of the online helps, the mailing list, and the IRC chat room. The owner hired me part-time after that.
You don’t need to keep regular users out of system administration; you just need to not require them to get into system administration until they want to do something sysadmin-like. Then, you need to let them pick off the piece they want, without making them get involved in everything else. The good Linux distros do this, letting the user install a “server package” with the same graphical ease that they install a chess program. (With the exception of anything involving SELinux, but someone was on crack with that one but it should be hard, because SELinux was designed by the NSA for high security, and no one has ever been terminated with extreme prejudice by mildly disgruntled Fedora users.)
My points (and I do have two) are that Linux is for everyone, (unless you are in some niche like graphics design, in which case someone needs to crack the whip under the CrossOver folks), and stop using SuSE! While it may be evil, even more importantly, it’s lousy software!
PS: I just copyrighted the Yast as artificial sweetener line, before I posted it here. It’s mine… (evil laugh).
(edited for content)
I agree Scott. I tried SUSE and it was strange bat guano. Sort of like windows because if FORCED me to use their executables to make changes rather than editing the files directly, like normal decent folks.
And GEE poor windows people you give them a choice of distributions or window managers they choke up Gates ….s from their stomachs, they say “holy cow, I just want the baby food forced in my mouth! WhyTF do I have a choice? That requires cognitive thought which Bill and the boys have extracted from my DNA.” THEN that is what is wrong with Linux, too many choices!
I have repeatedly tried to take Windows computer people and tried to get them to use VI properly and taught them the commands. AND I STILL catch them opening some gui window navigation thing I never saw or used clicking like junkies to find files. “Stop it! Use all your fingers and get to the command line.”
I love your response, you seem like normal folk.
[not “interface” or “working on applications” (all of which, in my opinion, are easier and better in Ubuntu w/ Gnome than on either Mac or Windows).]
Well, I use both Windows XP and SuSE 11.1 and I still find the Windows interface somewhat better. Cleaner and simpler layout, easier to read fonts, a tad more responsive, the clipboard works between practically every pair of applications, and unlike *nix the harddisk doesn’t have finnicky access rights management (I’ve never used Vista and don’t plan to do so).
[ No… a new Linux user’s biggest issue is unsupported, killer apps. If you can get iTunes (with DRM and store), Photoshop, and the latest MS Office working on Linux without issues, then users will defect in droves. (I know Wine and Crossover try, but they’re not there yet.]
Yes, that’s a second valid issue. Provided users can work *in* their applications. Open Office e.g. works Ok under Linux, but I still find the look-and-feel (fonts primarily) better under Windows. It’s getting there, but it isn’t quite there yet.
[(PS: If Mono gets us any closer to that goal, no matter what the patent issues, I say, “hurray!” Quick show of hands, who reading this in the U.S. doesn’t have libdvdcss installed on their boxes? Or paid for mp3 support? Of course, I raised my hand for both, because I think all of these software patents are legit.)]
I have no issue with Mono either (*provided* it stays an add-on to the operating system and doesn’t make it into the kernel), and would hope that it helps people to bring out better end-user software on Linux. That was the basis of my post Scottgrizzard is referring to.
[My point about Linux is that there is a natural progression from novice to expert, even for the 95%, and it requires no additional desire or frustration more than what an average user experiences in any operating system. The only difference is, in Linux, users can do something about their negative experiences, and there are tools that are easy to use and people willing to help.]
I have to differ here. As soon as you move outside the environment set up by e.g. Yast or the Debian package manager and your desktop you suddenly need to know about scripts, access rights and execution, file system structure, “sudo” tricks, user groups etc., which aren’t readily available through a graphical interface so that you need to do some command-line work. Why is that a deterrent? Well, with a GUI you don’t need to remember command syntax, you don’t need to remember options, and it’s much harder to mess up your system than when using the commandline as root.
So that’s when you need to either read a book (the one I was referring to) or waste a lot of time learning the operating system internals. A steep learning curve. For better or worse, there is no comparable situation under Windows.
[How can I say this politely?… WhyTF are you still using SuSE? SuSE is Diet Windows using Yast as an artificial sweetener. Pick Coke or Pepsi, and drink that! (More like pick corn-starch or sugar sweetened.)]
If you have a point to make with this gem of a paragraph I’m still waiting for it.
Perhaps you’ll reflect on the fact that the popularity of MS Windows isn’t *just* caused by Microsoft’s sharp practice with system vendors. People *like* the MS Windows interface enough to work with it. It’s far and away Windows’ best feature.
If you want Linux to compete with Windows then there are many worse thing you could do than come up with a windows manager that’s at least as good as Microsoft’s. They have been trying for the past 5 years and coming up short (KDE, Gnome).
In this discussion the actual *kernel* of the OS is a lot less relevant than the windows manager (provided it’s of sufficient quality to let people get on with their end-user stuff). MacOS proved this by grafting a Mac interface on top of a Unix kernel. Beos proved this by grafting a good GUI on top of a Unix kernel.
Only KDE and Gnome are still struggling to build a Windows manager that isolates people from the command-line complexities of the OS and make it all work. That’s because it’s not an easy thing to do.
[If you are mainly doing desktop work, give regular Ubuntu a shot, and then apt-get install kubuntu-desktop once you are used to the “Debian way of doing things.”]
Fair enough, I may give it a shot if SuSE doesn’t start using the Debian package manager. apt is a good piece of software.
[As opposed to Windows and Mac where there are… NONE. ...]
Because *none is needed*. Package developers take care of such things.
[... I think the multiple package managers is a very strong advantage for Linux.]
And I’m positive that they are a liability. Why? Because a package manager is just a utility. It needs to work, and work perfectly 100% of the time. When it does you need only 1 of them, and any other package managers are redundant and a waste of time. If you need to learn about 2 of them, you’re wasting your time or being a hobbyist.
[The fact that there is “two or three of everything” ... means that there is a rapid pace of innovation between competing communities. ]
Which doesn’t necessarily plead for the quality of the underlying products. Many of those underlying products are still immature () or redundant (KOffice for example). End-users don’t want (or need) innovation unless it makes their job easier instead of harder.
[Yes, in 1995 you needed a book to learn about system administration. Since then, we all got broadband and started blogging/list-serving/wiki-ing night and day (especially night). You don’t need books to learn Linux – what you need is a desire to change something about your system and an Internet connection. (For serious tweaking, a spare box or a virtual machine doesn’t hurt, but only if you are playing with the core system.)]
I believe you are seriously mistaken here. First off, you forgot the main ingredient: a lot of spare time in which to futz around with the system. Secondly, haphazard blogs by everyone and his dog may or may not be (a) informative, (b) coherent, (c) comprehensive, (d) accurate, (e) correct, (f) well-written, or (g) written with a consistent level of knowledge in mind on part of the reader. Good books tend to be all of those.
When you try to learn the subject from blog posts and mailing lists you are basically experimenting. Fine if you’re a student learning about computers. Not fine if you just want to get something done in a proper way. In that case you’ll first have to spend time finding relevant blogs (Google gives you more than you can use), then narrow it down to appropriate blogs, and then try it. By the way, your suggestion of having a spare machine on which to experiment is a good one. On the other hand, if you have to get it *right* first time, you need to know what you’re doing and learn about system, administration.
The best situation is when you don’t *need* do learn if you don’t want to because you can use a GUI.
[You don’t need to keep regular users out of system administration; you just need to not require them to get into system administration until they want to do something sysadmin-like. Then, you need to let them pick off the piece they want, without making them get involved in everything else. The good Linux distros do this, letting the user install a “server package” with the same graphical ease that they install a chess program. ... ]
My point exactly, only it doesn’t always work that way. Just try installing a HP colourjet under Linux that’s attached to another machine. In Windows that has been made easy over the years. In Linux it still requires some thought and knowledge.
[My points (and I do have two) are that Linux is for everyone, ...]
Sure. As long as you stay within the stuff that your distro has prepared for you, or if you can install a package using apt. Everyone else needs a lot of spare time.
[, and stop using SuSE! While it may be evil, even more importantly, it’s lousy software!]
*shrugs* Any easily stated and verifiable reasons why?