How Linux has failed me.

[Steveway]

I once read an article, it told about some years ago when the only persons using computers were people who knew what they did.
Then Microsoft came with it's Windows-operatin-system and made those computers avaiable to everyone by dumbing everything and everyone down.
Those users now think that an operating-system has to be easy and should do everything for them, they even expect beeing spyed and getting Viruses is a normal thing in every OS.
Those people are your "average joeys" and normally they are not meant to even use a Pc.
I myself even go that far to say that this slowed down development(Sub-Pixel-rendering anyone?).
Sometimes I really wish to be back in those times without dumbed down people beeing able to use Pc's.
And Slavedriver, there is no need to stop posting now, after you allready started this Thread, now finish it hounorfull.

[dasunst3r]

Sorry that Ubuntu didn't work out for you. Taking the step of at least giving Linux a chance, I will say, takes some guts. I remember taking the leap three years ago: Wired networking was a pain, I had to use the console to mount a USB drive, and dependencies were heck!

To add on to what everybody else said, please come back in six months. We'll have a new release waiting for you. Even if you won't come back, thanks for having tried it.

[Slavedriver]

- usb HDD not detected (fixed with regular Ubuntu)
- install amaroK, mp3s failed (can be fixed with using xmms or totem with the proper gstremer packages installed)

Withing the recent time interval - yes. And mp3s work fine with Totem\Rythmbox, I just wanted to use Amarok (especially seeing that it has a label "Works with this distro").

To each is his own. Never had USB issues with Kubuntu. I assumed you went to dmesg and tried to see if ti was detected?

Nope, didn't bother plus didn't know the way to do it.

An average user won't know the difference. A message doesn't appear with big, flashing red letters saying DON'T USE THIS!!!!!!!

Just tried it on my mom asking what button she would click. The answer was "I will click no, like you told me to click on all suspicious messages". And no, I didn't tell her that just before showing in to her.

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Ehem. The quoted post says about not using the console to configure stuff yet you post a line to be executed in the terminal. I think putting NVidia preferences in the menu would solve the problem even more easily.

I disagree. Linux can be easily customized to look great (ever hear of beryl?) and is flexible in both the GUI and CLI.

Not even heard but use it. Again, we are talking about customization. I can customize every system like there's no tomorrow. But I was talking about out of the box experience.

Mac OS, compared to Windows, wouldn't be considered successful and Windows is only considered successful because it's installed on every computer.

I would partially disagree with Windows part but only partially.

Why? It's just that he has to get used to it being different, not confusing.

Lot's of system folders are confusing. With Windows you know that Windows folder is no touchie. With Mac you know that System folder is no touchie. This, of course, does not apply to the geek users who are the current auditory of Linux anyway but IMO (and only IMO) it would be a nice touch. At least it will make me scroll less

You mean going to System-->Preferences & System-->Administration is too hard for you?

Not hard, inconvenient. Taking stairs to 5th floor is also not hard. But inconvenient as hell.

I once read an article, it told about some years ago when the only persons using computers were people who knew what they did.
Then Microsoft came with it's Windows-operatin-system and made those computers avaiable to everyone by dumbing everything and everyone down.
Those users now think that an operating-system has to be easy and should do everything for them, they even expect beeing spyed and getting Viruses is a normal thing in every OS.
Those people are your "average joeys" and normally they are not meant to even use a Pc.
I myself even go that far to say that this slowed down development(Sub-Pixel-rendering anyone?).
Sometimes I really wish to be back in those times without dumbed down people beeing able to use Pc's.

You don't have to know how internal combustion engine works to drive a car.

To add on to what everybody else said, please come back in six months. We'll have a new release waiting for you. Even if you won't come back, thanks for having tried it.

First of all, I just won't leave I will try to continue using Ubuntu (at least as long as I won't get off my butt and fix my Win) and I am really awaiting the release of Gutsy.

[Geekkit]

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you. Take the blue pill and all will return to normal.

[Lord Illidan]

Not a bad post. Between me and you, I agree with most of what you say. There are usability problems, software problems, and hardware problems.

Truth be told I had to try Linux recently because my few-years-old XP install is going haywire (you know like it becomes after a few years of extensive use) and all movies I tried to watch started to lag like hell. So, after reading another portion of "Linux is superior to everything" on Slashdot (really, guys, at lest try to be less biased) I decided to install latest version of Kubuntu (I had 6.06 installed prior to that just to try it out but I haven't used it a lot).

Fanboyism is rampant on Slashdot, and most other tech/geek sites. However, a linux installation, configured correctly, is a thing of beauty in my opinion. Stable, secure, and can look very nice.

Seeing that 7.04 was supposed to come with a nifty app to install the drivers I was quite please because the horror of trying to get my NVidia to work on 6.06 was still fresh. First thing I noticed when booted to LiveCD is that my external USB HDD wasn't visible. Oh well, I though, I'll browse the web without listening to music while waiting it to install. So I fired up the installation app, sniped my town from the world map (really guys add the zoom feature from Ubuntu's installer) to select the timezone and moved on with the installation. Meanwhile I tried looking for this driver install app because I remember seeing it on one of Ubuntu screenshots (not Kubuntu one though). Haven't found it. Oh well, maybe it'll become available after I boot into the real system.

I'd like to hear more about the External USB HDD not being detected in Kubuntu. Can you open a separate thread, and give the details of the usb hdd, and about your computer. It could very well be a legitimate bug. Regarding drivers, I guess they come in when you boot from harddrive, as I believe the nvidia driver requires you to reboot in Ubuntu. (Really, you could probably use CTRL ALT X to restart X, but rebooting is preferred).

So after trying to break my CD drive rack once more (still don't understand why the system requires me to eject the CD when I reboot\shutdown. I have a door which closes the part where my CD drive is so it will simply won't open if the door is closed damaging the fragile plastic gears used in the tray mechanism.) I rebooted into the real system. First thing - my USB HDD still wasn't there. Nowhere to be found and mounter manually. Second, driver install app wasn't there too. No external HDD basically meant a useless system to me because I store all my media files and documents there. So goobye Kubuntu, hello Ubuntu.

System requires you to eject CD because if you leave it there you'll probably reboot straight into the live cd again. Countless newbies could make this mistake All you have to do is leave that door open.

Boot to LiveCD, find my USB HDD already discovered, find driver install app, install the system, reboot. Sigh, HDD is still there. Install drivers, download 100+ updates including new kernel, reboot.

Try playing a movie. Alert appears saying codecs are not installed. OK, let's install some codecs then. And here's the part I don't like - the scary "Restricted app" message. While I don't really care about it I know 100% that any average user will be. And that will be an end for the media playback for him if some geek won't come and set it up for him.
Next stop - install Amarok, it being quite good media player. After installing it and building my collection I tried playing some MP3 files knowing what to expect - a pop-up asking to install MP3 codec because it's "restricted'. Boo, scary. Instead Amarok hanged... Restart, select a track, click play, boom, hang again. This time I actually see the pop-up but without any text or buttons. After a few seconds I am told that KNotify crashed.

Regarding Restricted app, it's actually important, because of numerous probable patent issues with the mp3 codecs and others. Regarding Amarok..interesting, can you start a new thread about it. Also, start it from the terminal

amarokapp

, and paste the output. Probably it is a codec issue..since Amarok uses a different engine, xine. Try installing libxine-extracodecs (enable multiverse and universe).

Oh well, no music for now, let's actually watch a movie. And now here comes another bad thing - movies that played fine on Win on Linux play with huge amount of artifacts and, sometimes, don't play at all looking corrupted. Reboot to Win - plays OK, reboot to Linux - artifacts and corruption.

Again..what kind of movies? I can play .divx, .mov, .wmv (not DRM encrypted though), .mpg, .avi perfectly well. It could be a problem with Totem..in that case try installing vlc from the repositories.

The rest of the concerns won't come up in a long, unreadable lame story-like way but more in a way of a nicely organized, but still unreadable, list:

1) Kubuntu doesn't offer the same functionality only in KDE like Ubuntu does. And I mean core functionality like USB HDD support

I'm pretty certain that was a one-off..probably a bug.

2) An average user WILL be scared by "restricted" stuff no matter what. "Restricted" means dangerous. And dangerous means bad.

There is a bit of a danger, regarding legal problems...

3) There is no centralized place to set up a system to your liking. In Mac OS there's System Preferences, in Win there's Control Panel, in Ubuntu there are dozen of little apps scattered through whole menu structure. NOT intuitive, NOT easy to use, NOT good.

Hmm, this is a matter of taste. There is a control panel for Ubuntu, called Gnome Control Center. To enable it, rightclick on the menu, choose Edit menus, go on Preferences and chose Control Center.

4) You absolutely canNOT set your system up without using the console. And console is what an average user is afraid of. Installed drivers ? Cool. But desktop resolution is still 1024x768. Now here comes two options: one of the involve editing xorg.conf manually and another launching nvidia-settings with sudo. Obviously both ways are NOT acceptable to an average user.

I have to agree with you there about the resolution..probably Xorg 7.3 should fix it, but yes, it's quite a bug..given that Fedora gave me full resolution automatically..without even installing the drivers (nv).

5) The system itself is tuned up for terminals of the 80s. If I am using a modern graphical card and LCD display I will have to cope up with extreme ugliness. Heck, even Win2k looked better than modern GNOME and KDE environments. Remember what made Vista and Mac OS successful ? Beautiful GUI, not scary word like "secure".

Taste is subjective...I wonder why it looks ugly to you? KDE, I can understand, the kicker is pretty ugly (without customisation). Gnome looks nice to me though. Also, there are cool programs like Compiz which can really snazz up your system.

6) While I already told it I think it deserves it's own number - use of console. It is completely NOT acceptable to the average user. If at least ONCE Joe Smith must use the console to get some basic (and basic involve installing drivers and configuring the system) thing = BAD, very BAD.

Well, I agree and disagree.

The console is great for many things. Fast, and in the hands of an experienced user, very easy to use.

However, I agree that newbies will have problems with it. When I started Linux, I couldn't even locate it from the menu. However, with the latest Ubuntu, can't say I really needed to use the console that much.

7) Some settings are sometimes illogically placed, hard to find and navigate to.

Which ones?

8) Scary way to install apps. While it really beats anything on Win (because Win doesn't have anything like that) for an experienced user, an average Joe will be shocked when he sees Synaptics screen. "Add\Remove" is a definite step forward but still it is not enough. For example I would personally like to see some codec packs (like CCCP or K-Lite or Vista Codec Pack on Win) being installable from there. Basically a metapackage but what an easy and simple way to add all needed codecs to enjoy the music and video.

Codec Pack is automatically installed when you play an mp3, for example..With regard to Synaptic...well, it is very userfriendly in my opinion. I wonder if an average joe would really be shocked. My friends liked the look of it..

9) OS structure is scary. While personally I don't care about all /etc/ /var/ and the rest it can scare the living poo out of an average Joe while he's just trying to find his D: drive (especially if he never bothered to give any labels to his partitions because hdc1 is NOT intuitive (not that I can thing of a better way to represent an unnamed partition)). I suggest to do what Mac OS does - hide all scary folders. I understand it's not possible to put them all in one neat and tidy System folder but at least hide them. Live only the ones user will use on daily basis (like home folder and media folder), the rest are just confusing.

IMHO, C: is more confusing than hdc1...

Here, I both agree and disagree. I never use the folders /etc /usr in a gui, just in a terminal..so if they were hidden, I wouldn't care. But..scary? Hmm...

[Lord Illidan]

Sorry to hear it didn't work out for you. Take the blue pill and all will return to normal.

Being snarky is not going to help anyone here. Let's show what a great community we are by helping this guy, and the people who also share his problems.

[xpod]

Can i just say that i`ve only read as far as the very first paragraph in the OP and without reading another word i can pretty much imagine the rest.....

I`ll sum it up in one single phrase shall i..."if i cant mange it then how the hell are mom or pop ever going to manage it"......or words to that effect??
Am i far wrong????

I do get pretty sick of repeating my own experience nowadays but it can have a lasting effect on many a self-proclaimed expert i`ve found......plus it`s about all i can do to help a user on in most cases of course

I AM pop here in my little world slavedriver and Prior to discovering Ubuntu last July i`d used a computer for all of 4 months.
Windows of course.One year on me and my kids all use Ubuntu like it was second nature......I know how little i know about computers compared to some of the whizkids,geeks & gamers on this place but boy have i heard my fill of so called experts complaining about how complicated & difficult it is.

Darn right it`s complicated & difficult but it`s not that hard to figure out given a bit of time & paitence surely?l
In hindsight i actually cringe at some of the stupid questions i asked last year but as they say theres no such thing as a stupid question.......only stupid answers eh

I`m sure everything seems uber difficult & over complicated just now but you have to understand that this is mostly years of Windows making it seem that way.It`s only your unfamiliarity speaking for sure......Hell,I know how hard it was for me after only months with Windows so i can only imagine it from your point of view.

I started with computers quite late in life myself but i`m ever so thankfull i arrived when i did and never had the clouded judgement that many seem to arrive here with....so to speak.

Whatever your problems slavedriver i`m sure you`ll overcome them......i`ll have faith in you pal even though you`ve none in yourself at the momen okt

After all,are you really going to let some stupid box of wires get the better of you????????

[Lord Illidan]

It is difficult at first. However, preservation is the name of the game. Heaven knows how much I swore at my old Fedora Core install...dependency hell!

[Geekkit]

There is a bit of a danger, regarding legal problems...

Technically the only danger is to Canonical and not to the end user. For those few countries that actually have laws such as the United States with their Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), there are back doors. Section 1201(f) allows users to have/use software used to decrypt so long as the user is doing so to achieve interoperability of open source operating systems with proprietary operating systems.

However Canonical cannot know what Ubuntu end users are using the software for and so they would be putting themselves at risk (and hence liability and endless years of mitigation). Canonical could put a license agreement in place that forced users to take responsibility and agree that they're not going to use the encryption bypass mechanism for encoding, only for decoding. But that would fly in the face of what Ubuntu is all about so instead they let the end user download what's needed and make up their mind themselves. Power to the people and all that.

Most people just see "Restricted" and blindingly and narrow-mindedly say to themselves that downloading the software is "illegal" or "immoral" or worse ... must be supporting communism or something silly like that.

[Geekkit]

Being snarky is not going to help anyone here. Let's show what a great community we are by helping this guy, and the people who also share his problems.

You misread my response - there's nothing snarky in it. He's already made his mind up and so my implication was to simply go back to Windows where the feelings of defensiveness will go away and so will all his frustration and life will return to normal.