What keeps people away from Linux?!

[jeyaganesh]

In my two years of Ubuntu experience, I have seen great leap in its evolution. Lot of users struggled to get their wireless adapters and widescreen resolution on Gusty. But Heron rectified those problems. Painful different ways of installation (sudo get, make, xvzf, eeee) is little bit smoothed by Gebi installer now. Still some of the things to be made easy for laymen like me. Of course some of the things to be made strong too.

Now, what keeps me away from Linux;
1. Besides Gebi installer-friendly software, still other software installation needs some knowledge about commands.
2. For adding every devices, people need to search on forums and to read lot. For instance, I couldnt make my creative audigy sound card sounds similar on Windows. Well, these companies dont support Linux. ( I feel it is that company should provide essential drivers to their customers to use their devices on any machine - pc/mac/linux.)
3. Confused, no, mysterious file system (bin, opt, usr, local, share). I never know where the softwares are been installed.
4. Most of the Linux users are geeks and developers. They like to produce Linux to their knowledge level. They are less concern about how to give Linux to laymen.
5. No easy audio/video editing softwares. For me Gimp is still complicated one. Picassa is doing well for some extend.
6. Low or less compatible video players. I couldnt play newly bought DVDs on Ubuntu for last months.
7. Most of the softwares has less classy look. (eg rhythm box).
8. Less faith in free goods.

These are my view and opinion. It is up to my knowledge only. Please share your views and opinions here to make Linux best. Because it is only give digital freedom.:popcorn:

[melrom]

change. fear of the unknown. close-mindness. fear of the word "linux."

I'm serious on the last one. A kid actually asked me if it was just "words on a black screen."

[jeyaganesh]

You may know well about computers or you may be a computer professional. But people from other walks of life just needs a machine to work with and to help in their work to be done.

[Robux the great]

i have to agree with a previous post

Fear of the unknown keeps people back from trying Linux
My friends also struggle with the command line

Regards

Rob

[OmniCloud]

In my two years of Ubuntu experience, I have seen great leap in its evolution. Lot of users struggled to get their wireless adapters and widescreen resolution on Gusty. But Heron rectified those problems. Painful different ways of installation (sudo get, make, xvzf, eeee) is little bit smoothed by Gebi installer now. Still some of the things to be made easy for laymen like me. Of course some of the things to be made strong too.

Now, what keeps me away from Linux;
1. Besides Gebi installer-friendly software, still other software installation needs some knowledge about commands.
2. For adding every devices, people need to search on forums and to read lot. For instance, I couldnt make my creative audigy sound card sounds similar on Windows. Well, these companies dont support Linux. ( I feel it is that company should provide essential drivers to their customers to use their devices on any machine - pc/mac/linux.)
3. Confused, no, mysterious file system (bin, opt, usr, local, share). I never know where the softwares are been installed.
4. Most of the Linux users are geeks and developers. They like to produce Linux to their knowledge level. They are less concern about how to give Linux to laymen.
5. No easy audio/video editing softwares. For me Gimp is still complicated one. Picassa is doing well for some extend.
6. Low or less compatible video players. I couldnt play newly bought DVDs on Ubuntu for last months.
7. Most of the softwares has less classy look. (eg rhythm box).
8. Less faith in free goods.

These are my view and opinion. It is up to my knowledge only. Please share your views and opinions here to make Linux best. Because it is only give digital freedom.:popcorn:Well I mean, that's why there's so many different flavors of Linux though.

I think Distro's like Ubuntu/PC Linux are definitely aimed at giving linux to the laymen. It's very easy to get into these distros.

As far as applications not looking as flashy, well that's really up to the user. The best looking desktops I've seen have mostly been Linux desktops. There is definitely some room for improvement--especially in the video editor space. But just like the widescreen and wireless thing was addressed, I think it's just a matter of time before the other thing happens as well...

Now in another 5 years, if we still only have the same apps we're complaining about now, I'd be a little concerned.

[LaRoza]

I think to really answer this question, we have to get a little hypothetical.

Imagine if you will, all operating systems are available in a store (on a disk, not on a computer), and the systems have no software.

The average person has no hope installing Windows without knowing a lot. Linux requires less knowledge.

Using my PC as an example (which is all Intel and works perfectly with Linux), a user would have a big hassle installing Vista or XP (after the lengthy install, there is no useful software, and there is activation required. It also will be lacking the most basic drivers). This computer was built with Windows in mind.

Linux (distros like PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, Ubuntu), on the other hand, installs easily and all hardware works (including my printer and webcam) out of the box with no configuration. Also, Linux will have a full set of useful software already installed, and the user won't be bugged about activating or some such. Also, the repos are ready to be used.

What keeps people away from Linux? The fact that Windows is preinstalled on almost all systems. Nothing else.

[cardinals_fan]

Now, what keeps me away from Linux;
1. Besides Gebi installer-friendly software, still other software installation needs some knowledge about commands.
2. For adding every devices, people need to search on forums and to read lot. For instance, I couldnt make my creative audigy sound card sounds similar on Windows. Well, these companies dont support Linux. ( I feel it is that company should provide essential drivers to their customers to use their devices on any machine - pc/mac/linux.)
3. Confused, no, mysterious file system (bin, opt, usr, local, share). I never know where the softwares are been installed.
4. Most of the Linux users are geeks and developers. They like to produce Linux to their knowledge level. They are less concern about how to give Linux to laymen.
5. No easy audio/video editing softwares. For me Gimp is still complicated one. Picassa is doing well for some extend.
6. Low or less compatible video players. I couldnt play newly bought DVDs on Ubuntu for last months.
7. Most of the softwares has less classy look. (eg rhythm box).
8. Less faith in free goods.

1. True, but the commands aren't hard
2. True when devices aren't supported
3. Read http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html
4. Changing, but still true to some extent
5. GIMP/Picasa provide good image editing. Audacity provides good audio editing. I don't use video editing so I don't know about that.
6. DRM problems
7. I disagree. All my Qt apps look plenty classy
8. Huh?

[jeyaganesh]

LaRoza, you always give good answer :)

[Nessa]

What keeps them? I think the fact that they actually have to install it. Everyone I know who use windows, use it because it came preinstalled. Currently, there is only 1 store in my city that'll give you the option of having ubuntu preinstalled (because they'll charge you for windows). I imagine none for other major cities.

[RebounD11]

8. Huh?

I second that :D

and I also like to say LaRoza has a good point there.

[jeyaganesh]

Yes, yes. Some people dont even know how to install Windows. I used to help my friends in reinstalling windows.:)

[LaRoza]

LaRoza, you always give good answer :)

Its the truth, if the average computer buyer had to make a choice, they would definately not buy Windows. Only people who use Windows specific software would buy it and set it up.

Imagine a truthful sales person in that world:


Here we have Microsoft Windows. It requires more hardware to do less than Linux. It requires you to pay $150-400, and you can only use it on one computer. To help make sure you are following the rules, you have to type in a long sequence of numbers and letters, and sometimes the validation service will crash and you will be locked out. This operating system comes with no useful software and you can't do anything to improve it because the source is closed. It comes with limited hardware support also. It comes with a web browser, and this operating system is easily infected with malware on the internet, even by just going to some sites! Windows doesn't come with any software to help prevent this, but you can buy some later!

This operating system is capable of running lots of commericial games, but comes with the most basic game, and is popular for using several highly specified and expensive software packages.

Marketting a distro like Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE or even Debian would be easier, I don't need to tell you all about that I hope.

If Windows were so "user friendly", it would be...friendly to the users. Look in the Windows forum of this forum, you'll see that Windows has even stranger problems on computers which were designed to run it than Linux on any random computer.

[HermanAB]

Most people have no idea that they depend on Linux every day. There are more than 2 billion Linux devices out there (mostly phones and phone systems, routers and the like). So the whole modern world depends heavily on Linux and many people have two or three Linux devices right in their homes and in their pockets.

[LaRoza]

Most people have no idea that they depend on Linux every day. There are more than 2 billion Linux devices out there (mostly phones and phone systems, routers and the like). So the whole modern world depends heavily on Linux and many people have two or three Linux devices right in their homes and in their pockets.

Not to mention servers. Even MS relies on Linux servers (for some service, I don't remember the details)

[zmjjmz]

What keeps them away?
Simple.
No major OEM has put it as their only offering of OS.
EDIT: Laroza; MS hired some company to firewall them, and that company uses Linux.
I guess the MS servers won't get attacked for a while :/

[stchman]

In my two years of Ubuntu experience, I have seen great leap in its evolution. Lot of users struggled to get their wireless adapters and widescreen resolution on Gusty. But Heron rectified those problems. Painful different ways of installation (sudo get, make, xvzf, eeee) is little bit smoothed by Gebi installer now. Still some of the things to be made easy for laymen like me. Of course some of the things to be made strong too.

Now, what keeps me away from Linux;
1. Besides Gebi installer-friendly software, still other software installation needs some knowledge about commands.
2. For adding every devices, people need to search on forums and to read lot. For instance, I couldnt make my creative audigy sound card sounds similar on Windows. Well, these companies dont support Linux. ( I feel it is that company should provide essential drivers to their customers to use their devices on any machine - pc/mac/linux.)
3. Confused, no, mysterious file system (bin, opt, usr, local, share). I never know where the softwares are been installed.
4. Most of the Linux users are geeks and developers. They like to produce Linux to their knowledge level. They are less concern about how to give Linux to laymen.
5. No easy audio/video editing softwares. For me Gimp is still complicated one. Picassa is doing well for some extend.
6. Low or less compatible video players. I couldnt play newly bought DVDs on Ubuntu for last months.
7. Most of the softwares has less classy look. (eg rhythm box).
8. Less faith in free goods.

These are my view and opinion. It is up to my knowledge only. Please share your views and opinions here to make Linux best. Because it is only give digital freedom.:popcorn:

Those are some decent reasons although some are wrong.

1. Pretty much all software is available through Synaptic and Synaptic is as easy as it gets.

2. There are Hardware Compatibility Lists out there. Stick to the popular brands that are Linux friendly. My Audigy 2 worked OOB since Edgy.

3. That is a ridiculous statement. I guess system32 is a far better name.

4. That is the past. Anyone can use Linux today.

5. The GIMP is kind of difficult, but Photoshop also has a fairly steep learning curve to use it's features. Complex software is complex to use. Video editing lacks a touch but Kino works.

6. When I first installed XP it cannot play DVDs, MPEG 2/4. XP cannot play OGG or FLAC without third party software. After the CODECs and libdvdcss were installed I was playing all types of media.

7. I think Openoffice and Firefox look just as nice as Office and IE. Rhythmbox looks very nice.

8. Try them.

[KingTermite]

1. Fear of something they can't get help with. I suspect most "average joe" users think its only a "super geek" fad and there is no help other than from a small community of super geeks who will not explain things to level you could understand them anyway.

2. For those that have seen it and still fear it, I suspect its the power. In Windows (or MACs I assume - never used one) they make it pretty hard to really screw things up. In Linux, it's pretty easy to totally screw things up. With harmful commands (like "rm" for one example) not having default protection by "asking" the user "are you sure you want to delete (y/n)?".

3. Complication of having to learn something new all over again. The directory strucutre is completely different (I'm still getting used to it as a relative newbie). Everything is controlled by text configuration files, not simple settings in a GUI dialog (like they are used to). Common capabilities (like ability to play MP3, AVI or audio CDs) are not available by default - you have to manually choose to install them.

Those are a few things that scare off people, IMO.

[zmjjmz]

3. Complication of having to learn something new all over again. The directory strucutre is completely different (I'm still getting used to it as a relative newbie). Everything is controlled by text configuration files, not simple settings in a GUI dialog (like they are used to). Common capabilities (like ability to play MP3, AVI or audio CDs) are not available by default - you have to manually choose to install them.

Those are a few things that scare off people, IMO.

The codecs thing is really only true of the distros like Ubuntu that try to be fully FOSS.
I know for a fact that a lot of the other distros such as PCLinuxOS, openSuSE, Mandriva, Ark, etc. have those by default.
And not everything is controlled by a text file, just the geeky programs/window managers like conky and pekwm.
And even then, a lot of the popular software have GUI frontends to editing those text files (such as X).

[jeyaganesh]

I read sometime before, probably in some of the ubuntu forum, that Microsoft use Unix to produce Windows OS CDs to avoid viruses. :popcorn:

[twright]

In my two years of Ubuntu experience, I have seen great leap in its evolution. Lot of users struggled to get their wireless adapters and widescreen resolution on Gusty. But Heron rectified those problems. Painful different ways of installation (sudo get, make, xvzf, eeee) is little bit smoothed by Gebi installer now. Still some of the things to be made easy for laymen like me. Of course some of the things to be made strong too.

Now, what keeps me away from Linux;
1. Besides Gebi installer-friendly software, still other software installation needs some knowledge about commands.
2. For adding every devices, people need to search on forums and to read lot. For instance, I couldnt make my creative audigy sound card sounds similar on Windows. Well, these companies dont support Linux. ( I feel it is that company should provide essential drivers to their customers to use their devices on any machine - pc/mac/linux.)
3. Confused, no, mysterious file system (bin, opt, usr, local, share). I never know where the softwares are been installed.
4. Most of the Linux users are geeks and developers. They like to produce Linux to their knowledge level. They are less concern about how to give Linux to laymen.
5. No easy audio/video editing softwares. For me Gimp is still complicated one. Picassa is doing well for some extend.
6. Low or less compatible video players. I couldnt play newly bought DVDs on Ubuntu for last months.
7. Most of the softwares has less classy look. (eg rhythm box).
8. Less faith in free goods.

These are my view and opinion. It is up to my knowledge only. Please share your views and opinions here to make Linux best. Because it is only give digital freedom.:popcorn:


linux can never be installed as easily as windows as windows is already installed
linux isn't cheaper than windows as windows has already been bought

neither are the communities fault

[forestpixie]

Using my PC as an example (which is all Intel and works perfectly with Linux), a user would have a big hassle installing Vista or XP (after the lengthy install, there is no useful software, and there is activation required. It also will be lacking the most basic drivers).

Worked on a pc this week, they needed a reinstall and some partition work doing - the person had lost the motherboard drivers and I couldn't get them from the manufacturer, nor could I find them anywhere else. Absolutely wonderful .

The pc now has Ubuntu on it, dualbooting with a dying win install. They were regularly on the phone to start with but not now as they get used to it - feel much better about helping them as well.

[LaRoza]

linux can never be installed as easily as windows as windows is already installed
linux isn't cheaper than windows as windows has already been bought

neither are the communities fault

No, many OEM's do preinstall Linux. Keep up on recent events ;)

Linux is cheaper in price. Windows is paid for by the OEM, and that price goes to the buyer of the system. It is somewhere between $20-$200 depending on where and what.

[LaRoza]

Worked on a pc this week, they needed a reinstall and some partition work doing - the person had lost the motherboard drivers and I couldn't get them from the manufacturer, nor could I find them anywhere else. Absolutely wonderful .

The pc now has Ubuntu on it, dualbooting with a dying win install. They were regularly on the phone to start with but not now as they get used to it - feel much better about helping them as well.

I did an install of Windows also on an old PC (for myself, to see how it handled on this extra computer) and it took a long time and was a hassle. (Windows 98 SE, which originally was on this PC). Even for me, knowing the exact specs it was a pain (although I wasn't confused by anything, I felt the process was needless complex and arcane)

[gameryoshi600]

People do not like change I guess.

[forestpixie]

it took a long time and was a hassle

Drives me up the wall tbh - but at least that one will get progressively easier, unfortunately the business pc has some brand new mulifunction lexmark now - 1st thing the bloke bought without my input and of course I have a great chance of getting a suitable driver :(

[chucky chuckaluck]

most people couldn't care any less. if their computer works for what they do with it, they're not going to go out of their way to change it, especially if they have a lot of other stuff to do that's more pressing.

[karellen]

LaRoza hit the nail on the head: people are not aware of Linux - and thus they keep away - because Linux it's not preinstalled on new computers that can be bought from the store

[Don S]

I was really surprised how poorly Windows XP's default driver support is.

My neighbour, who I'm casually helping with his problems, didn't want Vista anymore. I suggested Linux -- he knows actually quite a lot about Open Source -- but he didn't want a system that other people he knew, couldn't help him with, and I couldn't deny that - so we went on for an XP installation. Things went fine (although slow), the partition selector in XP is horrible, and the fact that you have to "install" it twice is just annoying.

Anyhow, system was installed, but the wired internet connection driver wasn't installed per default. What the heck is up with that? The computer didn't have a driver CD, since it came preformatted with Windows. But he had two computers that he wanted formatted, and the second fortunately had a driver CD, that worked with the first (the second computer also required the driver, for the internet connection to work).

But I was like: How can you produce a system, that doesn't support a wired connection out of the box? Is that not a bit more lacking than being unable to play DVDs due to licensing restrictions?

[Nessa]

I've reinstalled XP a few times on my sempron machine and it's fairly easy. It's still the "next>next>finish" thing only with blue and white text. Problem is, once it's installed, then what? No office software. No graphics software (would you really use MS Paint for work?). No security software (I mean anti-virus and one of the first things I did was turn off windows firewall since I have a hardware one). It pretty much installs drivers on it's own via a wizard searching the net. Point is, it's obvious that linux offers a lot more.

Maybe this is also where piracy helps MS. I know of a couple of places here that installs xp or vista with MS Office, Photoshop, Kaspersky, and any other program you like for no additional cost when you buy a pc. Say it is true that 91% of desktops use windows. How many of them are legal copies?

[Mazza558]

LaRoza'a nailed it here. It's the only thing stopping us now - which is pretty impressive and most people don't realise that we're literally one step away from winning.

[zmjjmz]

That thar is one gigantic step.

[atomkarinca]

What keeps them away?
Simple.
No major OEM has put it as their only offering of OS.
EDIT: Laroza; MS hired some company to firewall them, and that company uses Linux.
I guess the MS servers won't get attacked for a while :/

Let's be fair. Dell has been selling PC's with preinstalled Ubuntu for some time now. Recent news state that Acer will be putting it on their new laptops. At last but not least Netbook (or UMPC or whatever you call it) market will (most probably) be dominated by Linux distros (like Ubuntu Netbook Remix).

So... Now the awareness issue is taken care of, at least partly. Now there's the biggest challange: "How can you stop people from using pirated software?", this is why I can't convert people most of the time. When I say Ubuntu is free, the comeback is "So is Windows", almost always. This is not something BSA can achieve. And it shouldn't. What should happen is a new awareness: appreciation of people's work. And this can only be achieved by the Free Software Movement.

(I think day by day I'm getting more like Richard Stallman :))

[swoll1980]

Re: What keeps people away from Linux?!
The smell, of course.

[RebounD11]

I read sometime before, probably in some of the ubuntu forum, that Microsoft use Unix to produce Windows OS CDs to avoid viruses. :popcorn:

No they don't... I actually bought a DVD with Visual Studio 2008 from a MS dealer in my university (sealed case, MS logo and all) and guess what: it was infected by a flavour of the Bronto.K trojan if I remember correctly. I went back to return the disk but they said I can't because I've opened it (Wow... just like the new equipment in the Electronics lab - we can't use it because most certainly we'll brake it... so it just takes up dust). I've even proved them it had a virus and they refused to replace it .. however they gave me a link (that works only with IE) from where to download the Student Edition (which suffices for my needs, but I'm still poorer and have a brand new infected DVD branded MS).

Sorry for being off topic but I saw this post and remembered why I hate MS (other than Windows).

[Nessa]

I guess it all comes down to 2 things. Either they don't know about Linux or they just don't want to make the switch (for whatever reason). As much as we want to help them, we can't make the decisions for them. All we can do is go about our business until they start asking about the problems that they're having.

[chuyler1]

I'm new to Ubuntu so I'll add a few comments. I have been using some form of Linux/Unix at work for years but I have never made the jump to using it as my primary home machine until now.

Pros:
1) Free Office Suite and Web Browser installed and ready to go. Installing MS Office and Firefox is always the first thing I do when building a windows box so I was glad to see that it was already available to me.
2) Free and easily obtainable software. The Add/Remove Software feature was very nice and I could easily search for linux equivalents of common applications
3) Speed. The OS is unbelievably fast and I have no trouble multitasking.

Cons:
1) Hardware support. Right away I ran into problems with acpi and had to disable it in GRUB. Explaining this to my mother over the phone would be impossible. I also have yet to get my HP scanner to work properly. The scan program scans photos but they look like crap. I sidelined that project for a rainy day. These are just two issues I have had, it is pretty much a given that you will have at least one hardware issue with Linux before you are up and running.
2) IPOD support. Let's face it, the iPod is a household staple. Rhythmbox was a poor choice for a media player as it doesn't support the iPod very well. I was forced to install Amarok and a bunch of plugins like transKode to get things up and running. The learning curve for either app is much higher than iTunes.
3) Using commercial software. There are lots of linux alternatives out there but sometimes you need the real thing. If you play video games you might as well just give up or create a dual boot machine. For me, I had to have Quicken. I got it to work, but there is no way the average Windows user would be able to do all the research I did and get it up and running. It took me several days.

Will these issues stop me from doing it again? No. Will these issues stop me from recommending it to less computer savvy friends and family? Absolutely.

[twright]

No, many OEM's do preinstall Linux. Keep up on recent events ;)

Linux is cheaper in price. Windows is paid for by the OEM, and that price goes to the buyer of the system. It is somewhere between $20-$200 depending on where and what.
i know about preinstalled linux :), the problem is only existing linux users will buy it preinstalled unless it is presented in the same way as it was with the gPC or preinstalled on a phone

they first need to try the OS before they can buy a PC based on its merits, hopefully virtulization will help adoption (windows powerusers can try it out without having to sort out hardware support)

also things like system rescue CD (how i first tried linux) help, useful utilities for fixing windows while getting used to linux

2) IPOD support. Let's face it, the iPod is a household staple. Rhythmbox was a poor choice for a media player as it doesn't support the iPod very well. I was forced to install Amarok and a bunch of plugins like transKode to get things up and running. The learning curve for either app is much higher than iTunes.
banshee (1.0) should be the default, it is very easy to use and it supports my ipod well