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Linux Software

Trivial Barriers to Personal Linux Use? 239

Posted by Cliff from the identifying-how-everyday-people-use-computers dept.
saintp asks: "I'm currently multitasking: building a computer for my girlfriend, and also trying to convince her to put Linux on it, so I've been thinking a lot lately about the barriers to adoption of Linux by Normal Everyday People. One that seems to be a major problem is that Windows users are addicted to downloading every piece of crapware that comes down the tubes -- hence the popularity of Gator and subsequent popularity of Ad-Aware. While geeks the world over sigh at this behavior, it makes a lot of people really happy, and they are very chagrined to discover that they can't do this on Linux without some command line mucking about, compilation, etc. What other minor, apparently trivial barriers exist to personal Linux use? Is anything being done to address these, or do many of the major vendors seem to be focusing exclusively on the business market, possibly to the detriment of Linux in the long run?"
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Trivial Barriers to Personal Linux Use? More

Trivial Barriers to Personal Linux Use?

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  • Not all Windows user download that much software.. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pilot1 ( 610480 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:35PM (#8265706)
    Your girlfriend might download alot of software just to try it out, but everyone I know is too scared to.

    I know back in the day before I had migrated to Linux, I would install various programs just to play around with them. However, I never installed crapware like Gator, it was usually just stuff from sourceforge that sounded useful.

    Maybe you could try giving her a distro that uses RPM, then show her freshmeat and sourceforge, and teach her how to install any programs she might want. That should satisfy her urge to try out new things.

  • Software installation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tyrdium ( 670229 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:36PM (#8265712) Homepage
    It's a pain to install software on Linux compared to Windows. What I'd like to see is a nice, standardized binary distribution method, with good OS integration. RPM is good, but requires opening it in a program. What I'd like to see is a way to, by simply double-clicking on the RPM, install it to the directory of my choice (e.g. have it bring up an installer similar to the ones commonly used in Windows). Also, the directory structure in Linux is relatively confusing to work with. How about a single, unified folder for my programs, like Windows' Program Files folder? I've heard of a distribution that uses a directory structure similar to Windows', but it's definitely not one of the larger ones.

    • Re:Software installation (Score:5, Informative)

      by More Trouble ( 211162 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:42PM (#8265770)
      What I'd like to see is a way to, by simply double-clicking on the RPM, install it to the directory of my choice (e.g. have it bring up an installer similar to the ones commonly used in Windows). Also, the directory structure in Linux is relatively confusing to work with. How about a single, unified folder for my programs, like Windows' Program Files folder?

      Well, Mac OS X does a pretty good job of this. It maintains all the Unix-y stuff in the typical Unix-y places, and has a whole secondary structure for GUI-crap. For instance, there's a /bin, /usr, /var, etc; along with a /Applications, /Library, etc.

      :w

      • Re:Software installation (Score:2, Interesting)

        by torpor ( 458 )
        The best part about the way OSX does this is that it is a completely 'UNIX'-y solution. OSX Apps are unix apps wrapped in a fancy, -standardized- directory structure, with their own text files for config descriptions, binary payload directory layouts, etc.

        "OSX Apps", the pretty ones with icons that bounce, live in a subdirectory with a ".app" at the end of it. Finder (and not much else) knows that any time a user clicks on a file with ".app" in it, this whole subdirectory contains the full suite of resou

    • Re:MacOS Technique (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:54PM (#8265869)
      Why not create an installer packaging program like the ones used on Windows and MacOS? This seems like something that would be good for KDE and Gnome to work on together. This packaging system would be great for beginning and desktop users, while not necessarily attempting to replace the myriad packaging systems already out there. I think that this is an important caveat - a lot of the packaging systems that linux distros use have a lot of features that are great for unix manglers, but from a desktop OS standpoint they qualify as creeping featurism and add excessive complication to the whole installation process. Also, using an InstallShield type system means that different packages can have slightly different install processes, depending on what needs to be done to get the package working.

      The directory structure is also something that doesn't necessarily need to be scrapped - I personally think it's a Very Good layout from a server/workstation administration standpoint, although I agree that it's terrible for a desktop computer. Again, I think OS X has hit on a very good solution - keep two separate file structures. One would be aimed at a desktop user and would be visible through the desktop environment. Applications that a desktop user needs can be placed here. Keep the old file tree, but make it invisible to the desktop environment (by default, anyway).

      This system isn't without its faults, but I've found it to be an excellent comrpomise on OS X.
    • This is not elitism at all, but if you are going to use a computer you have to adapt to it. It will not adapt to you. Read further and you will see what I mean.

      Now Windows approach to installing may be easier, but the Linux way is a whole lot safer. Having executable installers means that you can get a virus by double clicking. It also means that there isn't a uniform way to install stuff. On Linux it's just yum install blah. Windows is always a different look and feel.

      The biggest problem facing Linux tod
    • The Windows methodology: every program gets its own space (C:\Program Files\*\) and makes its own rules, not necessarily the user's.

      The UNIX methodology: every program uses the provided spaces and follows the system's rules (/usr hierarchy); if the program chooses not to (e.g., /opt/*/), the burden falls on root to make it work. Unfortunately, for us source people, every distro has a different setup.

      Conclude from this what you will. I'm too tired to think anymore.
    • He mentioned trivial package installations like Gator.

      Linux does have some pretty advanced packaging system, generally standardized on .deb and .rpm nowadays. The new issue is having graphical standards. There are tonnes of different window managers in use, and KDE and GNOME still dont play quite well. Not to mention their menu systems are located at crazy locations across distros.

      So whats a new package to do right after install to become a small icon in the desktop menu? It has to discover what window ma
    • You really don't need, and definitely don't want a Program Files folder. In fact you don't want any folders at all, folder is a dumbed-down name for what has been since the beginning of heirarchial file systems (pre Unix even...) been called a directory. There is no need to folow the dumbing-down imposed on the world by a mere Convicted Monopolist, in fact why should anyone listen to such an entity at all? Programs are segregated into /bin/ /usr/bin/ /usr/local/bin, /sbin etc for good reasons, however it is
    • What I'd like to see is a way to, by simply double-clicking on the RPM, install it to the directory of my choice (e.g. have it bring up an installer similar to the ones commonly used in Windows).


      So install Mandrake. Then you can just double-click RPMs and be lead through the install, just like Windows.

      Well, just like Windows except it works even if you're not administrator, and you don't have to reboot...
  • I am certainly not against apt-getting every little thing I here about, no matter how little I need, know about, or can trust it!

  • Sun Java Desktop (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stonebeat.org ( 562495 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:45PM (#8265796) Homepage
    Check out Sun Java Desktop System [sun.com]. It is a OS based on a Linux kernel and Suse Linux.
    Though you won't be able click and install applications, like one would do on a Window box, but Java Desktop System is a very close to it.
    I think Sun Java desktop introduced a happy medium. Making it too easy to install software, increase chances of getting infected by a virus, worm etc.

    Here are some more presentations on Sun Java Desktop [xml-dev.com]

    • Java Web Start offers one-click downloading and installation on any OS or desktop. It works beautifully. The trouble is getting developers to use it. Most don't program in Java to being with, and if they do, they insist on native installation routines, etc.

      Similarly, InstallAnywhere, the ubiquitous Windows installer, is actually a cross-paltform Java application. It allows a developer to plug in routines to install an app on any system -- Windows, Mac, or Unix/Linux. The trouble is getting developers

  • Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)

    by pontifier ( 601767 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:46PM (#8265803) Homepage
    When I first tried linux and the bsds it took me a while to figure out how to get arround in the terminal.

    perhaps "dir" should start a linux tutorial as i'm sure i'm not the only person who's first instinct was to type "dir" when given a command prompt.

    • Re:Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)

      by Brandybuck ( 704397 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @12:01AM (#8266357) Homepage Journal
      Maybe Windows should have a tutorial pop up each time I type "ls" in the command shell.
      • btw, do you know how I can do an alias in DOS? I keep typing ls and getting "BAD COMMAND OR FILENAME"
        • I did this about a decade ago, before I abandoned Microsoft OSes entirely. I had a bunch of batch files named LS.BAT, CP.BAT, MV.BAT, etc, that did nothing more than call the MS-DOS equivalents and pass the commandline arguments off to the real command. I never used Windows/DOS enough to care about adding argument translation or anything, though. (Things like making CP.BAT accept a -r and call "xcopy" instead of "copy".) If there's a better way to do this, I don't know it, nor will it do me any good now.
          • If there's a better way to do this, I don't know it, nor will it do me any good now.

            Even though it may not do you any good, some of us can't use Windows without CygWin [cygwin.com] anymore, which takes care of the "all your unix commands are belong to us" syndrome quite nicely.

        • 4DOS (Score:2, Interesting)

          by BinLadenMyHero ( 688544 )
          Back in the day I used DOS, 4DOS [jpsoft.com] (a COMMAND.COM shell replacement) was the number one must-have software.
          Simple, small, clean, fast, and with all the features a power user want, even more that you could dream of.
          I even prefer its TAB completion over bash.
          It was incredibly productive.

    • Re:Newbie detector (Score:5, Funny)

      by bcrowell ( 177657 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:38AM (#8266902) Homepage
      Actually we really need an animated paperclip to pop up and say, "It looks like you're trying to do an ls. Do you want the ls wizard to help you through the process?"

      • Re:Newbie detector (Score:4, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:55AM (#8267005)
        $ ls -a
        Are you sure you want to do an ls -a? That will
        show hidden files, and files are hidden for a reason.
        >y
        Okay, are you absolutely sure you meant to say yes to that last question?
        >y
    • but a lot of them got the dir command aliased to "ls -l" and you even get pretty colors now ain't that nice?

      There are some good books out there apparently to help complete beginners, personally I learned from a unix guy, but you really need to start to worry when you hit midlevel.

      When ls and such no longer hold any secrets there are few books who will help you along in a general way.

      I can see plenty of tutorials on installing apache. Sadly all of them seem to be for very low volume sites. Start hitting t

  • Sharing limitation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PinkX ( 607183 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:47PM (#8265812) Homepage
    One thing that I've been thinking of lately that is really a limitation for end users to adopt linux in the desktop is the (un)ability to easily share resources in a LAN environment.

    I might be wrong at this, but I haven't seen in either GNOME or KDE something like 'right button click' -> 'share this folder' option, to get a list of the known users and automatically add it to the samba/nfs shares/exports list. If someone knows about some work being done in that direction, that would be a Godsend.

    Regards,
    • I think that was one of the things that Licoris or Lindows was advertising. Don't remember.
    • Konqueror's (in KDE 3.1.*) "folder properties" dialog has a "local net sharing" tab. I'm not sure if it is of any use since I don't have any network sharing set up, but it's there.

    • Re:Sharing limitation (Score:3, Informative)

      by JimDabell ( 42870 )

      I haven't seen in either GNOME or KDE something like 'right button click' -> 'share this folder' option

      It needs to be enabled by the administrator, but right-click on a folder, go to Properties, and there's a Local Net Sharing tab there (KDE 3.2, dunno about previous versions as I don't use that feature).

  • Lindows (Score:3, Interesting)

    by alienw ( 585907 ) <alienw.slashdot@ ... inus threevowels> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:50PM (#8265838)
    Lindows [lindows.com] is trying to solve the very problem you are looking at. Sure, people bitch about them (mainly due to the elitism of many Linux users), but I heard it's a nice solid distro, and things like click-and-run make it very easy to install software.

  • My personal list of barriers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Evil Attraction ( 150413 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:50PM (#8265839)
    I use Linux most of the time. The only reason I sometimes (too often) boot to Windows, is when I want to either play a game or do some genealogy. There aren't many games for Linux - not very popular, at least - and there are certainly no genealogy software which can compete with the genealogy software developed for Windows. I guess I can live with that.

    What concerns me most is the situation for the rest of the family; We are Norwegians, and my father does some accounting for a few locale companies. I've yet to see a decent accounting application for Linux which works according to Norwegian rules. We're actually talking about one application which separates my father from using Linux instead of Windows.

    My brother took over my father's farm a year ago. He needs Windows for some special software related to running a farm. Once again - it's only one piece of software.

    My other brother doesn't have this problem, but he's not so good in English. I would have loved to install Linux on his laptop so that I didn't have to help him out every time Windows f*cked up. But most of the Linux software lacks in the localization field. Not many applications are being translated to Norwegian.

    Conclusion: Some special software which still looks a few years from now, and the lack of localizing the most popular software. I guess both of these problems will be solved over time, but I would've given my lef...right foot for having it solved now. :)

  • I've got one. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by dporowski ( 670734 ) <`mycroft' `at' `mad.scientist.com'> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:50PM (#8265847)
    I have to keep screwing with it.

    Seriously. I mean, I like messing about with computers, OS flavors, etc, etc. I've currently got a couple different flavors of linux, looking for a third, and am thinking about a BSD. It's just lack of space for hardware that keeps me from having more toys. It's nice to use, it's powerful, it's flexible..

    However, I'm not always in the mood to sit down and figure out why something doesn't work right. For instance, why Mandrake currently has told me three times in a row that my glibc is out of date. And upgraded it to the newest version each time. (Yes, using "mandrake update".) Oh, and doing so BROKE Mandrake Update. My OS update feature broke itself. I'm sure this is fixable, but why should I have to screw with it just to make the admin tools work again?

    My mouse. It's got 5 buttons. Why the HELL would I want to install a program, tweak multiple files, and chant ominously just to get the side buttons working? I know how, sure. It's just I have better things to do.

    I don't WANT to make my game work. I want my game to WORK. I don't want to have to make X program load properly, or hand-twiddle a configuration file. I want to open a damn document, view it, edit it, and save it with formatting. No, I don't want to learn TeX to do it. I know I CAN, but why do I have to?

    Seriously. I'm a damn hobbyist, and I do these things for fun, and it still pisses me off that I have to spend more time playing with it to make it work than it does working. Updates shouldn't break things. Upgrades shouldn't cause triple-layered dependency hell. THere shouldn't be dependency hell at all. We hate "dll hell", why is fucking about trying to find just the right version of a given module acceptable? I mean, there's girls and liquor and music out there for me, why should I spend all my time fixing something that can just work? (I know it can. Apple did it. It's been done once, thus can be done again. It's just not BEING done.)

    Choice? Screw choice! I want function! Would you drive a car if you had to put the damn wheels on every time you parked it? Would you put up with having to buy the correct grade of gas from JUST th right pump style, from the exact proper petrol chain, just to start the car in the morning?

    For fuck's sake, the 2.6 upgrade, which I look forward to installing on GENTOO for the love of god, isn't covered by the documentation, requires a full replacement of the main module utilities, and Still might not work right. I CAN'T RTFM, since this shit isn't IN the FM to R.

    I think you get the idea.

    I love doing this stuff, and it STILL pisses me off and drives me to drink. What do you think your granny's going to do?

    Go back to windows, or Mac, or something that does what she wants, when she wants it, and doesn't have to be babysat.

    And enough with the goddamn text editors, people. I understand you like them, but I don't need 50 of them. Spend the time you used to put those on my distro app disk to make sure the distro doesn't randomly shit itself.

    (Not bitter or anything, me...)

    • Re:I've got one. (Score:2, Informative)

      by yarbo ( 626329 )
      Getting 2.6 to work with Gentoo is pretty easy. Just read the ewarn when you emerge it (it's got a few notes about what to make sure you enable in your kernel). The ebuild will autograb the new init-mod-utils also.
    • Original poster: I'm currently multitasking: building a computer for my girlfriend, ...

      dporowski: I've got one. I have to keep screwing with it.

      Wish I had that problem.

    • Re:I've got one. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Alioth ( 221270 )

      Choice? Screw choice! I want function! Would you drive a car if you had to put the damn wheels on every time you parked it?

      You've obviously never had to drive a British Leyland product, or anything with Lucas prince of Darkness electrics :-)

      But back on topic - you don't have to do that with Linux. I run RH8.0 at home, play games (such as RTCW:ET) that come for Linux, and spend no more time 'screwing around with it' than I ever do with Windows. My printer just works. The only bit of hardware at home I di

    • 1 - Updating.

      You should select OS vendor by OS update quality. If Mandrake isn't cutting it, try something else.

      2 - Five button mouse

      One for each finger, that's cool. Now, if the mouse vendor only supports Windows, then don't buy the product. Or, buy the OS that the mouse vendor IS supporting (if you *must* have that mouse.).

      If Linux hppens to support it, good. Get someone to install it for you (and pay for it). Solve the damn problem -- why are you whining?

      3 - You just want it to WORK

      So pay someone

  • Ease of installation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rueger ( 210566 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @10:56PM (#8265886) Homepage
    Every few months for several years I have downloaded a couple of Linux distros with the express purpose of trying install it on my PC. Sometimes I tried clean installs, sometimes dual boot.

    As much as I would love to use Linux and OSS, I have an even greater need of a working system that handles my basic needs. Right off the top my system has to handle a USB and parallel port printer, HP scanner, Palm sync, Internet connection, access to the Windows boxes on our small network, and allow the Windows boxes to use the printers and see my files.

    If all of those work, I can spare the time to wade though the great morass of information that Linux calls "documentation" and learn the obscure tricks that are needed to manage a Linux system.

    What I can't afford is to have a system that does only some of the things above. Thus far installing Linux has always left me with at least two of my needed functions absent. I already know that trying to find out how to fix them will consume days if not weeks.

    With Windows 2K (and driver discs) everything above "just works" out of the box.

    Just for the record: Mandrake (a few times) RedHat (3 times), Suse, Caldera (long time ago), Knoppix, and at least two others.
    • I've been in the same boat....

      Except, I now have SuSE 9.0....

      And everything works, just about, right out of the box. On one system, with a Geforce FX, everything just works. Installed the NVIDIA drivers using YaST2 update (SuSE's installer). Configured NVIDIA drivers using SaX2 (SuSE's X setup). Everything else worked without setup, and far faster than a Windows install would take.

      Minor problems: My nforce system needed the nforce rpms from Nvidia's site. My ATI Radeon 9800 Pro needed the rpms from ATI s

  • My first barrier, (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dtfinch ( 661405 ) * on Thursday February 12, 2004 @11:04PM (#8265936) Journal
    once I finally got it installed and working with my hardware, was the selection of text editors found in the Linux distributions I've tried. The graphical ones are getting better, but vi and emacs are very difficult for most newcomers to learn. mcedit is a bit more familiar, and comes with many distributions, but it wasn't until years later that I noticed it was there.
    • A lot of distros include pico, which is pretty simple to use. FreeBSD includes ee with the base installation, which is another easy to use editor.
    • I don't get you problem. Windows doesn't have any text mode editors, and no one bitches about. It comes with cheesy notepad.exe and people think it's awesome.

      So what's your problem? Use kwrite, gedit, or whatever is in your desktop menu. Both blow the pants off of notepad. I can somewhat understand the intimidation factor of having to choose something during install time. Is this worse than Windows that doesn't let you choose between ANYTHING?

  • might not be that big a deal.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mehu ( 92260 ) on Thursday February 12, 2004 @11:21PM (#8266063)
    My mom's computer was popping up ads every couple minutes under windows, so last summer I set it up as a dual-boot Debian box. Installed mozilla, gaim, openoffice, & the usual basics (my mom had to have solitaire & mahjohngg), and showed them how to switch back & forth w/ the lilo menu. I also set up gdm w/ the face browser, & set it so they don't have to type in a password (although my 16-yr-old sister opted to have one anyway, 'cause "it's cool!").

    Next time I went home, they had me switch the default to Linux so they didn't have to sit there when it booted up. My mom, sister, and stepdad (who can't even figure out how to use the DVD player) have been using it quite happily since then, and aside from having to install flash for my sister (which I was able to do remotely via ssh, another plus), they haven't complained at all about not being able to install shit. They're just damn happy they can read their email (they use mozilla), chat, & web surf w/o being bombarded by popups all the time. They're also quite impressed that they can each have their own web bookmarks and desktop pictures (first thing my sister did was put up a Pirates of the Caribbean background). I don't think they've booted into Windows much at all since then.

    Only real problem they've had is that there's currently no way I know of for them to switch users when my sister has xscreensaver locked, short of killing X.

    • If you limit them to low-impact screen savers (no realtime ray tracing or other cpu-hog bloat code) you could give them each their own session (and they could hop back & forth with Alt-F<your number here>); that way, even if one of them is in the middle of something, they could yield the system to someone else without needing to close or exit anything (although it's generally a good idea to save!).

      We've used this sort of setup at work with reasonable success, though we did have to break a few MS

    • Change to latest versions of KDE ... it has the option to "log in as a different user", basically "startx -display :+1" ... starts a new X-session on the next virtual terminal (alt-f7,f8,f9, etc) without losing currently running programs and allowing people to switch users.

      This is on debian unstable, it's a really nice feature. And maybe it isn't x-screensaver but k-screensaver, but whatever it is, it works pretty good. :^)

      Good luck, glad to hear a success story.

      --Robert
    • As for getting around Xscreensaver locks, get the newest version of KDE 3.x from the KDE website. They have an apt repository for woody and Unstable has a 3.x version already in.

      Anyway, under the newer KDE's when the deskopt is locked with screen saver, you have the option of Starting Another Desktop for a different user. Yep, Fast User Switching is already available for Linux under Debian Stable (with the KDE addon ;) ).

  • Love of Crapware (Score:3, Insightful)

    by daviddennis ( 10926 ) <david@amazing.com> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @11:34PM (#8266168) Homepage
    I think this is one of the most interesting problems. Many users love their Hotbar and ever-changing desktops, even when I explain that it's what's making their computers run at the speed of a drugged slug.

    I have one particular user, a cute girl, who just loves her Hotbar. "It's pretty!" she gushes. And of course her desktop picture is filled with Pink, her favourite colour.

    I have been quite surprised how much people get attached to these things. As someone who doesn't even switch away from the default MacOS X desktop theme (it's tasteful!), I find them absolutely bewildering

    But since they love their Hotbars, I leave them alone, because above all, I want my users to be happy. Happy users are productive users. And so on.

    But why are people addicted to things as silly as ever-changing resource-killing screensavers, and Hotbar?

    I'd love to know.

    D

  • Printer Support (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rizzo ( 21697 ) <donNO@SPAMseiler.us> on Thursday February 12, 2004 @11:51PM (#8266286) Homepage Journal
    Setting up CUPS is easy, but the drives available for my Canon BJC-3000 printer all SUCK. Normal printing is all faded, and even the "high quality" printing (which takes FOREVER to print) still has crappy colors.

    My wife wants to print things like cards or color signs and labels. Until someone writes a much better BJC-3000 driver, (I'm using the gimp-print-4.2.5 driver) I'll have to keep that windows partition around.
    • Please remember to tell Cannon how you feel.

      It's difficult to reverse-engineer hardware, and even Microsoft doesn't write it's own print drivers. It's no surprise that Cannon's drivers are better, they did write the hardware after all.

      But no company will write CUPS drivers if they think the demand for them isn't significant. And they don't know unless people tell them. So it really does make a difference to ask for driver support.

  • Mainly (Score:3, Insightful)

    by falsification ( 644190 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @12:16AM (#8266466) Journal
    What other minor, apparently trivial barriers exist to personal Linux use?

    Frankly, I don't feel like pluging into the user forums and mailing lists only to get flamed because I didn't read the entire 400 pp manual accessible only with less.

    I don't feel like getting flamed on IRC or Usenet or Slashdot for asking what to me is a really hard question and to you what is really easy.

    I don't feel like it because right now I've got what I need on Windows. If some day I can switch to Linux with a little online support that will not result in a bunch of elitist geeks calling me whiny or annoying or stupid just because I asked a question or tried to answer a question that f********* calls for people to be whiny in the damn first place, then maybe I'll switch.

    If you want people to join your &#&$##@ club, don't bitch them out when they walk in for the first time. It's just basic.


    • show up in technical forums all over Usenet. Here is a hint to make your life easier:

      Be prepared to do some work on your own before asking questions - ones that have no doubt been asked countless times before - in a public forum.

      Learn to use Google (and Google Groups). Learn to search text files so you don't *need* to read all 400 pages. You should also learn not to exaggerate.

      If you aren't willing to put in the time to do a little research, and if you expect people to take their time to hold you
      • The problem is that a lot of times, read the FAQ is not merely stated "Read the FAQ". Instead, some people seem to have a powertrip over embedding "Read the FAQ" in personal insults or putdowns.

        No, this doesn't mean you specifically, or even 90% of the community. However, for whatever reason, there's a sizable section of Linux users that like to tout their superiority. It's great that these people know so much about their OS of choice, and it's great they're taking the time to answer a question, but if the

  • Try BSD. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FFFish ( 7567 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:07AM (#8266756) Homepage
    Over the past decade or so I've tried Linux on and off a half-dozen times. Every time, I've gone back to Windows, which blows goats but at least lets me get my g.d. work done instead of having to continually f*** with obscure configuration files.

    But I've installed FreeBSD a week ago, and it's going along pretty well. There's still a fair bit of f***ing with configs, but less so: it's secure from the start.

    FreeBSD feels, to me, like it was designed. Linux always feels like it just accumulated by accident.

    • Re:Try BSD. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nathanh ( 1214 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @03:42AM (#8267476) Homepage
      Over the past decade or so I've tried Linux on and off a half-dozen times. Every time, I've gone back to Windows, which blows goats but at least lets me get my g.d. work done instead of having to continually f*** with obscure configuration files.

      Whenever I use Windows I find it a frustrating experience, having to deal with obscure registry settings and drivers and service packs.

      FreeBSD feels, to me, like it was designed. Linux always feels like it just accumulated by accident.

      Comparing FreeBSD to Linux is like comparing a Toyota Corolla to a V8 engine. Try comparing FreeBSD to a distribution like Suse, Red Hat or Mandrake.

      My experience is that FreeBSD is no better or worse than any of the community driven distros like Gentoo or Debian. Seeing as the majority of userspace is the same (XFree86, OpenOffice and GNOME) that's really no surprise. It's strange to claim FreeBSD is "designed" whereas Linux is not, because most of the software in FreeBSD is accumulated in exactly the same way that it is accumulated in every Linux distribution.

  • A few of my issues (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jeoin ( 668566 ) <jpgarner@gmail.com> on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:10AM (#8266775) Journal
    1. no uniform installer w. no uniform uninstaller 3. permissions... :) 4. a billion configuration files 5. how do i talk to all my windows stuff 6. drivers, see #1 and #2 And lastly Why does every one have to have their own distro, with their own package manager. Linux is supposed to be this great free software movement, Lets get it together and find A path. I want to help. let me know what i can do...
    • 1. Dpkg or RPM
      2. Dpkg/RPM
      3. Permissions!! :) Just say no to worms and viruses.
      4. Have you tried to read your windows Registry recently?
      5. 2.6 reads all MS filesystems
      6. My 2.6 kernel "just works" with most everthing I plug into it. I have to install drivers for a new MOUSE under MS XP.

      Lastly: Because diversity is the spice of life, mother of invention, and conformity breeds monoculture, incest, and extinction.

      Linux IS a great free software movement. Part of that free is Freedom, freedom to d

  • People, Places, Things (Score:4, Interesting)

    by imag0 ( 605684 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @01:18AM (#8266805) Homepage
    I guess the subject ties all I really have to say in together nicely enough.

    I migrated my wife to Linux a few months ago, after some skips and jumps migrating her IE Favorites over (had to write my own script to migate them over. Ask for the source if you want it) I had to move her mail client from Kmail to Evolution.

    What a nightmare.

    Just coverting between maildir to MBOX formats were a pain, getting her people in her addressbook was another fight, and in the end I decided, there must be a better way.

    Anyone remember good old BeOS? In Be you had People... Every mail client used People as a master address book. It was clean, intelligent, and you didn't have to code up your own converter every time you wanted to switch mail clients. The same goes for Mail... The system saved mail on the hard drive in a specific place and format (Maildir, I think it really ended up being). All mail clients used it, and they all behaved well with it.
    And finally, the browser favorites were located in one place, installed a third party browser? No problem! They all read the favorites from the same place. Coolest part, if you had to backup, just a few folders to drag from the users directory and all the important stuff was backed up to cd.

    Here lately i've started working on a framework to unify People (address books) Places (Favorites) and Things (Mail) so that users can use any mail client they wish, with any browser, and everything stays (and, more importantly, keeps) updated, no matter what client one uses.

    Oh, well. Someone get in touch if you want to bring back some of the cooler aspacts of BeOS to the world of Linux. It's not going to get any easier until we make it so.

  • It's called Xandros. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Reality_X ( 23422 )
    Just go to distrowatch.com and read the rave reviews.

    It looks good, it detected all my hardware on multiple machines and set everything up properly, and it's extremely user friendly.

    IMHO, the best desktop Linux distribution on the market today. And I've been using Linux since '95 and have never seen it as well put together as Xandros.

    Oh, and it has shiny graphical interfaces for software installation and what not.

    Try it. :)
  • I have a solution.

    This is very simple, It avoids breaking various distros by working outside the distros file tree. /applications /applications/mozilla /applications/mozilla/bin/mozilla.

    each installer package would link all the executables to a /applications/bin folder. so

    ln -s /applications/mozilla/bin/mozilla /applications/bin/mozilla.

    Have a script run before every install to check all the links in the /applications/bin folder and delete invalid ones, so that you can just delete a directory to uninst

  • Linux has to make it onto the office desktop before it will make it onto the home desktop.

    Most people still learn to use computers in an work context (but computing in schools is making this less prevalent) and at work or in school the desktop is (by and large) Windows. This gives the advantage of familiarity to the Windows OS, and people will typically choose something familiar.

    Related to this is the lack of Linux software in stores. When you walk into a computer store you see plenty of software and

  • This is the key,

    anyone can walk down to a PC store and pick up the software they want (games/ quicken type stuff/ desktop publishing/photoshop....) and install then easily, by themselves, on Windows.

    Until Linux gets the native app support from the big software guys, AND the software is as easy to install, its not going to succeed in the long run.

    THEN the PC vendors will start to sell Linux with the hardware (or will send lawyers at them?).

  • Give her a Mac. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by torpor ( 458 )
    She'll love you for introducing her to OSX.

    (Put Konfabulator on there first, and set up a few nice widgets for her ...)

  • Brain dead options (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jazman ( 9111 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @07:20AM (#8268098)
    There definitely need to be brain-dead options. Click - done. At the moment doing anything with Linux is an uphill struggle even for someone like me with decades of experience with computers of various different types. I even gave up on a new Linux box simply because copy/paste between applications was so bizarrely different (and I'm already used to switching between C-c/C-v/C-y/C-k on my Windoze box, and remembering that yank has opposite meanings in my two favourite editors, so that's not the issue.)

    Installing software is a joke. Where? Which RPMs do I need? Which RPMs need updating? What other apps fall over because their dependent RPMs have been updated without their knowledge? The number of times I'm like "oh for fuck's sake" and back to the old Windows box.

    Click - done. This should be available. Of course, this doesn't mean that all the fannying around options should be removed for people who do want to use their brain, but not everyone wants to read gigabytes of bad-attitude HOWTOs for the slightest little thing.

    I even gave up installing BitTorrent on my Windows box last night. What the fuck is a tracker? Where do I get one?

    Ok, you can whine at me for being thick but that's rather missing the point. I'm /not/ thick, I just have better things to do with my time. At the moment, even though I want to use Linux, I know every time I turn to it that the least thing is going to be an uphill struggle of poor docs, thousands of dependencies, other software falling over, yadda yadda yadda.

  • User installed software is dangerous! (Score:3, Informative)

    by chthon ( 580889 ) on Friday February 13, 2004 @07:43AM (#8268157) Journal
    Nobody seems to have thought far enough that user installed software is dangerous. You have two solutions here.

    a) Use standard installers like yum, apt-get, urpmi, whatever, which only install software as root from trusted repositories.

    b) Give the user the possibility to install software, but only in their own directories as themselves, and make sure through the installer that none of this software is installed setuid root.

    The alternative, to make it possible for them to install whatever software as root is probably the biggest gaping hole waiting to get exploited on Linux, if it becomes mainstream desktop software.
  • Both gDesklets [gnomedesktop.org] and SuperKaramba [sourceforge.net] both have oodles of existing desktop plugins written in Python -- so you could whip up or modify what's out there to look and work as she would like.

    Of the two, SuperKaramba has more plugins that will appear to the novice or non-geek. To see SuperKaramba applets, go here [kde-look.org] (though the KDE-Look.org site is currently having fits, so you might have to check back later).

    These bits of mostly eyecandy might help make a Linux desktop more interesting to the uninitated.

  • I'm sure someone will come out and insist I'm entirely FOS on this, but...

    A lot of the modern Internet eye-candy out there has limited support under Linux. One big problem is QuickTime and WMA video formats. They have limited support i.e. you can download those files and (maybe) play them, but that's quite a few steps away from the inline-web-page proprietary-plugin-dependent hypermedia world that today's wannabe-digerati (hack spit) marketers intend -- and layusers expect.

    Not to mention limited or no abi

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