Why do some people think Linux is so hard to use?

[JustinR]

Hey everybody,

This isn't really a rant about these people but from this story that I just read online that should put these people to rest.

http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/reports/7098/1/

So basically the author of the article describes how his 88 year old Father-in-law is mostly confined to his house because of old age - a very boring environment. So he sent his father-in-law an Ubuntu CD. And then it all gets better - so read the article!

I thought it was really cool - especially because I've been seeing a lot of people complaining about Ubuntu like "why doesn't it just work" and other things when this 88 year old man got it to work seemingly perfectly.

[V for Vincent]

Probably for historical reasons, primarily. Most stuff works nowadays, but it was different only a few years ago. That, and when something doesn't work, it can be a total pain. But I do agree that, for day to day needs, it should do the trick very nicely. The transition at our house was completely painless.

[JustinR]

Probably for historical reasons, primarily. Most stuff works nowadays, but it was different only a few years ago. That, and when something doesn't work, it can be a total pain. But I do agree that, for day to day needs, it should do the trick very nicely. The transition at our house was completely painless.

I never thought of historical reasons - I can agree on that! And me too, I transitioned our house to Ubuntu a few months ago - works well.

[cnbiz850]

Because there is no good marketing or promotion for Linux.

[Paqman]

Our Achilles' Heal is still hardware. Trying to get non-supported hardware to work with Linux is still a pretty grim experience. People who try to switch and run into a brick wall of hardware problems flee back to their previous OS with tales of how horrible Linux is to use.

When your hardware works, modern Linux distros are incredibly easy to use, but when it doesn't they're still awful.

It's worth pointing out that the same can be said of any OS when your hardware is incompatible, but the most-used OSes are also naturally those with the least unsupported hardware.

[murderslastcrow]

I've never heard a very legitimate 'it's hard' argument for the last couple years.

It's usually about things not being the same, not that they're difficult (just a different way of doing things, just like if you got a Mac, but probably easier than that). Or it's a program that hasn't been made natively for it and doesn't work in Wine, so they try to beat around the bush and insult Linux as a whole instead of just admitting it's really nice but doesn't suit all of their needs/wants at the moment and dual-booting.

And a lot of people have never ventured outside of Windows since Windows 95, never installed an OS, never looked at anything but a start button, so it will be foreign to them. If they don't feel like learning something new, they'll complain that they 'have to' to get something with the quality of Linux, even though it's free.

I think people feel obligated to use it since it's so good, free, and community-driven. So there are a lot of factors pushing people to want it to work for them. But some people just want the easiest way and aren't willing to relearn anything.

That's where you get a lot of the complaints, people who wish it were just that tiny bit more familiar so they could enjoy the pleasures of Linux without giving up a Windows mindset.

Of course, there are still niggling areas we could address, but I don't see anything outside of application availability that Windows does any better than Linux.

[clanky]

There are a few reasons why, mostly because they are comparing their Linux experience with their Windows experience:

1. It's not Windows, people who have learned how to use computers in a Windows environment think that Windows is how computers work, many find it difficult having to learn new ways to do the same thinkg.

2. It's (usually) not pre-installed, people are used to buying a computer with a pre-installed / pre-configured OS, having to mess around getting hardware to work seem alien to them and they equate this with Windows =easy / Linux = hard; rather than pre-installed OS = easy installing and configuring your own OS = hard.

3. Windows is ubiquitous, if you have a problem in Windows then chances are you can ask a friend who will know what to do, there is not as much Linux knowledge out there.

4. Linux still breaks stuff, even when you get your hardware working there is still a good possibility that the next update / upgrade will break it.

[Paqman]

It's usually about things not being the same

True, but when you're at the sucky bottom end of any learning curve for any new skill, it sure feels hard. One thing that never ceases to amaze me about teaching is the capacity learners have for making simple things seem complicated.

That's why I really like projects like Wubi. Sure, it's not the best way to set up a dual-boot, but it's ridiculously easy. People can learn about partitioning, the command line, recompiling their kernel and vim later. We don't have to throw everything at them right at the start. If they want to go on to learn the techy stuff, they'll ask.

[Johnsie]

It's because they've only been trained in and know Windows. Not everything in Linux works the same. Things they used to be able to do just don't work when they try to do them the way they have been trained.

[Khakilang]

Window is even harder to use if your computer been infected by virus and eat up your precious data and slow down your internet speed. Once they experience this difficulty like me they will think twice. Those that are not willing to change are mostly gamers who still like their favorite game no matter what happen. Some don't see a need as their use it for simple task and don't store important data.