What Ubuntu is here for

[wersdaluv]

I chose to post this thread in the "Absolute Beginner Talk" portion because this is what everyone should know. Before one does something, he or she must know its cause. Before you Ubuntu, you must know what Ubuntu is here for.

For those who do not know what "Launchpad" (http://launchpad.net) is, it is a collection of services for products in the open source universe. Also, it is where users report Ubuntu bugs (or bugs from other distros). Now, there is these bug that is really bugging me big time. Not just me; it also bugs Mark Shuttleworth and many other people. It is the Bug #1 in Ubuntu (https://launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+bug/1) initially reported by Mark Shuttleworth.

Here is the description of the bug:


Microsoft has a majority market share in the new desktop PC marketplace.
This is a bug, which Ubuntu is designed to fix

Microsoft has a majority market share | Non-free software is holding back innovation in the IT industry, restricting access to IT to a small part of the world's population and limiting the ability of software developers to reach their full potential, globally. This bug is widely evident in the PC industry.
Steps to repeat:
1. Visit a local PC store.
What happens:
2. Observe that a majority of PC's for sale have non-free software pre-installed
3. Observe very few PC's with Ubuntu and free software pre-installed
What should happen:
1. A majority of the PC's for sale should include only free software like Ubuntu
2. Ubuntu should be marketed in a way such that its amazing features and benefits would be apparent and known by all.
3. The system shall become more and more user friendly as time

I hope you take solving this bug problem seriously. It is what "Ubuntuing" is all about. We do this for HUMANITY'S SAKE.

[teejay17]

It's going to happen, I have a good feeling about it. Once Vista comes out, and people see how much control MS has over the computers, (and getting locked out), people will start switching.
In 2007 this forum will buzz even more with discussion.

[aysiu]

I've moved this to the Ubuntu Cafe from Absolute Beginner, as this isn't really a support request.

[Rackerz]

It might happen, it wont next year though. Things will kick off next year but Linux wont leap that important gap. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. Try and get gamers like me into Linux, sure we have Cedega but that's not free, is it? Even if it was games run slower and we can admit they do unless we have some Alienware monster computer that will eat Cedega and Crysis for breakfast.

Linux needs to show that it can do the business so game developers start coding for it!

[doobit]

I'm trying to do my part! I'm thinking of holding some "free software parties" where 10-15 people get together for a dessert and a discussion and I hand out copies of Ubuntu. What do you think?

[Tomosaur]

His name is Mark, not Mike.

[seijuro]

It might happen, it wont next year though. Things will kick off next year but Linux wont leap that important gap. Don't get me wrong, I love Linux. Try and get gamers like me into Linux, sure we have Cedega but that's not free, is it? Even if it was games run slower and we can admit they do unless we have some Alienware monster computer that will eat Cedega and Crysis for breakfast.

Linux needs to show that it can do the business so game developers start coding for it!

Linux does do business, more than half of the web is served on Linux machines. The deal is major game publishing will not take place on linux until there is a bigger market for it same reason there are fewer games for Mac than Windows.

[teejay17]

I'm trying to do my part! I'm thinking of holding some "free software parties" where 10-15 people get together for a dessert and a discussion and I hand out copies of Ubuntu. What do you think?
It's a great idea. The more opportunity to show people how Ubuntu and dessert come together, the better :p

[wersdaluv]

I'm trying to do my part! I'm thinking of holding some "free software parties" where 10-15 people get together for a dessert and a discussion and I hand out copies of Ubuntu. What do you think?

May the "Ubuntu force" be with you! hehe... That's the spirit!

[wersdaluv]

His name is Mark, not Mike.

LOL.. :D Sorry. My bad

[aysiu]

I've moved Jesiah76's post to a more appropriate thread (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=1960026#post1960026).

[malcolmb]

Good idea on making this thread, I'm sure lots of people use Ubuntu but have never seen that bug on launchpad, and they should. They should know what the ultimate goal of developing Ubuntu is, as well as where it's all come from. I think it's just as important as what is going on now.

[SuperMike]

Vista has been really taking some black eyes lately. Steve Ballmer is going to have to ship panties with it or something to get people to purchase it. The print ads would go, "It's Vista. And a pair of tiny panties. Now will you purchase it?"

However, Ubuntu needs some work too, in my opinion. It needs more testing with newbies and improvements based on that.

I've mentioned some things below, but don't get me wrong -- I'm a big fan of Ubuntu and use it on all PCs at home and on my PC at the office.

a. User's monitor/videocard has higher capacity of color depth, but in the current screen resolution, Ubuntu has defaulted to a lower color depth. He'd like to change this but doesn't see a video preference for it.

b. User's monitor/videocard has only 24bit color capacity at a fairly good high resolution, and 32 bit color isn't necessary for this user, so they'd like to go with this option instead. But they can't by default because in this scenario Ubuntu has defaulted to 32 bit color depth and the high resolution choice isn't available at that high of color depth. He'd like to change this but doesn't see a video preference for it.

c. Where does a user find "The Control Panel"? It's not the same on Ubuntu. They have to be smart enough to choose System, Preferences and not get sidetracked by clicking on System Tools.

d. The user's net card has defaulted to auto, but then that translates to 100 half duplex in this case. He wants the option for 100 full but doesn't see a preference in the GUI to fix that. Plus, an end user may not even know that 100 full is even possible and may have already been tolerating 100 half for quite awhile now. They don't want to have to learn commands like mii-tool or ethtool.

e. The Main Menu has "Sound & Video", but that is somewhat misleading to people such that they may think that's where they find the control panel items for controlling sound and video.

f. User finds a great site with some TTF fonts. He downloads them to his desktop. Now he wants to install them and doesn't see an option where to do that.

g. Highschool girl connects iPod to PC. A window flies open that is worthless to her because it permits read/write to the file space of this thing but that doesn't translate to putting songs on the thing. This is because it's an iPod and you have to use a tool (which is quite buggy) like gtkpod to put songs on and off of it. Meanwhile, the iPod eternally displays a "Do Not Disconnect This Device" warning that never goes away unless you unplug it from the PC. Also, before you do that, if you rightclick the iPod icon on the desktop, choose Unmount, you get an "Unable to unmount media" error. As well, no websites appear to be compatible with Linux for purchasing and downloading MP3s. Plus, MP3 support is not built-in, legally in the USA. Normally that's no big deal except that iPods don't play Ogg.

Also, some users just want to leave their iPod in their PC and have it download 1 or 2 podcasts automatically while they sleep. Then, in the morning during their long commutes (for instance), they can have a radio show from their iPod playing obscure things that they normally can't get on the radio, like a Linux talk show.

h. Thunderbird doesn't have an easy way for end user's to backup their addressbook and mail folders somewhere and then reimport them on a rebuilt PC at a later time. For instance, my wife had one Ubuntu system but the hardware was zapped by lightning. I had to rebuild the system again by reusing her old hard drive. I had to install Thunderbird and then overwrite several folders and files for it so that her old mail was back online.

i. Calculator and Notepad should just snap open super fast on a system without waiting around. GEdit is nice, but I don't need it all the time to be that fast -- sometimes I just want a super-fast editor to paste something temporarily while I work. Therefore, I installed Mousepad, but not every user is going to know they can do that and use two single-file text editors on their PC.

j. Swapping the Universe option on and off in Synaptic should be with less clicks and be more straight-forward. I also think it would be a good option for Synaptic to warn the user if they left the Universe option when shutting down Synaptic. It should prompt them if they want to turn off the Universe option now that they have found their software and no longer need it flipped on again.

k. I think Abiword and Gnumeric (GNOME Office) should be installed by default on every Ubuntu system right along with OpenOffice.

l. GNOME Office lacks a PowerPoint knockoff. It doesn't have to be too complex, but something to knock out a quick presentation with fly-in text (or just text) and perhaps some pictures, colors, small vector graphics, and text styles.

m. The default fonts lack a huge amount of variety. I know there's a massive variety of free fonts out there -- why don't Linux vendors ship with more styles of fonts? I also think that several fonts I have installed are nothing but slightly different clones of other fonts and aren't that necessary to have on my system -- they could be removed. And we need edgy sans-serif fonts that don't look like Windows knock-offs and which can make great logos on Web 2.0 website pages.

n. Inkscape should come by default right along with Gimp. Many users may not discover they can install this unless you tell them.

o. Needs to ship with Chess, and need an option to play the computer, and it needs an interface built in GTK2, not GTK1. Some extra games would be nice too -- Gnome's had the same games for years and years.

p. Where's the GTK2-based VPN GUI that interacts with 'vpnc' and doesn't require a stitch of text file editing to make it work? Obviously someone is way, way under-estimating how many people need a VPN solution on their PCs. In the past year I've seen huge numbers of people now have VPN capability and Linux is missing the boat on this one by not providing a GUI and/or not providing a GUI by default. And 'vpnc' works the best, plain and simple.

q. GnuCash sort of handles a lot of financial tasks and is fairly easy to understand. Is the new GTK2 version no longer seriously buggy?

r. GnuCash is not comparable to say, Quickbooks for Small Business. Linux needs a knock-off version of this or perhaps some add-on for OpenOffice spreadsheet app or Gnumeric could have this functionality.

s. Easily selectable by the Accessories menu, Ubuntu needs an option to make a snazzy alarm clock out of it that wakes the PC up from hibernation (or monitor hibernation) and plays music (MP3, Ogg, etc.) from a folder, cycling them at random, or tunes into an audio stream from a particular location like something you'd find on Shoutcast. When the alarm goes off, the screen could display a big clock that could be visible from a distance. You hit the spacebar to snooze and hit enter to stop the alarm clock. If you wait more than 15 minutes, it can also optionally buzz the internal PC speaker (without need of a sound card). To continue with the music while one cleans up and dresses, they can hit M for music and X to close the app.

t. I think it should have a newspaper icon on the menus by default. You click it and it opens a news site in Firefox. Sure, newbies could do that if they knew how, but there's a cool factor of having that already there when they install Ubuntu.

u. I know that Ubuntu is crazy about oranges and browns, but it would be nice if the installer asked what color theme you wanted and you could boot the desktop to that color theme.

v. GNOME integration of SSHFS for "secure mapped drives" to other Ubuntu workstations and servers. It's more secure than NFS and needs good integration with GNOME. Users shouldn't have to keep typing in a password all the time when they "map this drive" all the time on boot.

w. Now that you have cable or DSL, if you do, then do you have an unused modem port in your PC? Great, map a phone line through it and use Ubuntu as an elaborate answering machine that can attempt to interpret the audio into text, then attach a super-compressed (lossy compression) audio file of the message, and save it on your PC so that you can mount the maildir with Thunderbird and interact with it like you do with email. And this should come with a default Ubuntu system -- you just add the applet to your panel. And why? Because it's cool and quite possible.

x. Sometimes a process can go whacky on any OS. There needs to be less steps/clicks for end users to kill that hung process. They also need to be able to kill just the apps they loaded, not the stuff that the OS needs to run -- there needs to be a protective barrier in this tool so that newbies don't go shutting off a critical service like cron.

y. In the Multimedia Systems Selector control item, end users are not going to know that Default Sink stands for audio/video output and that Default Source stands for audio/video input. They need something that makes sense to them.

z. Ubuntu doesn't come with a simple slideshow screensaver with fades? Is that too much to ask? Instead, it's an elaborate OpenGL sort of thing that warps the pictures around like flags and so on.

[riven0]

Good post! I agree with most of it, but it'll take some time to implement all of this. I find a, b and d to be the most important at the moment, since these questions often come up in the beginners forum.

[SuperMike]

Yeah, and f and y, in my opinion, are fairly critical too.

[blueturtl]

I hate to sound sceptic but history has shown that while people don't like being on the MS-leash they will more likely complain at first and then accept. It's the same thing every single time. When Windows 95 came out people complained about how incredibly large and bloated it was, but in a few years everyone forgot after their systems got upgraded. Many Windows 9x series users including myself swore to never touch XP and then time passes and you're left without support. This is exactly how it's going to be with Vista. In the end everyone (except us enlightened ones) will have to buy Vista. A few years from now computers will actually run that crap at great speeds too. The Linux user base isn't going to explode, it will keep growing slowly but steadily as is currently doing.

Only after other systems start making the store shelves is there going to be a big leap and for the near future it just doesn't seem probable.

[steven8]

Many Windows 9x series users including myself swore to never touch XP

Walks forward. . .My name is Steve, and I was one of those Windows 9x users. I swore I would never use XP, but i wound up using it. But now I vow, before you and God almighty, that I will NEVER have Vista on any machine of mine.

I vow to get my wife to agree to the switching of our computers to Linux by the end of 2007!

[Tux Aubrey]

I vow to get my wife to agree to the switching of our computers to Linux by the end of 2007!

Wow. I would need superhuman powers to get my wife to agree to anything I want! :) Luckily she relies on me to do "computer stuff", so I just switched her computer over anyway, saying it had a virus. However, I am now officially and personally responsible for anything that "this Umberto thing" does that is in any way different from Windows. (What is the opposite of a superuser?). I think this is a micro-example of what Mr Shuttleworth will face if we manage to get ordinary users switching.

Sorry to digress, but I fully support this thread!

[ffi]

I hope you take solving this bug problem seriously. It is what "Ubuntuing" is all about. We do this for HUMANITY'S SAKE.


The value of something free, like Ubuntu = NOTHING. Or that is how people perceive things in general, the more something costs, the more people will appreciate it. If you have 2 identical pairs of jeans one charged $5 the other $150 people will stand in line to buy the $150 and completely ignore the identical $5...

Also computer stores make money selling windows but wouldn't make any money selling a preinstalled linux.

Make linux expensive, non-free and you will see people *will* start buying it....

[EdThaSlayer]

That is the biggest bug Linux operating systems have. If this bug just could just be fixed, then we would have lots of gamers coming to our side. Then these gamers start to use Linux for the games and then their familiy members would actually come in contact with "Linux". Also, this would lead to improved graphics drivers for Linux from the major vendors(graphics really need a boost in the Linux world, especially if we want to be as good as DirectX9 or DirectX10)

[steven8]

Gyaah! I don't want to even think about DX10. I know there are some other old guys around here like myself, so some will remember this. Cars didn't always run on Unleaded gasoline. At one time gasoline contained lead. Then, it was decided by others than the general populace, that gasoline should NOT contain lead. So. . .oil companies started producing gasoline without lead, and cars started being produced with openings which would only accomodate pump nozzles made for unleaded fuel. You had to get a car which used unleaded fuel. Sure there were adapters made for those old cars to use unleaded fuel, but it was easier to just get a car which used unleaded fuel.

So, to make a short story even longer, as much as I hate the way Microsoft just forces us to move to new stuff and leaves the old behind, it is not a new thing, and they are not the only ones who have done it. And people have just accepted it.

I don't want to be an accepter anymore. I don't want DX10. Ubuntu is about community, and we as community need to stick to our guns on opengl and open formats in general. So what if linux can't yet compete with dx. It's better to stick with what's right rather just go back to what's there!!

[SuperMike]

Walks forward. . .My name is Steve, and I was one of those Windows 9x users. I swore I would never use XP, but i wound up using it. But now I vow, before you and God almighty, that I will NEVER have Vista on any machine of mine.

I vow to get my wife to agree to the switching of our computers to Linux by the end of 2007!

If you need help with that, just holler. I got my wife on RH9 and she didn't like it. I then got her back on Windows and all it took was my son downloading a "skateboard game" on it and she had a ton of trojan horses on it, including keystroke loggers and the like. So I switched her to Ubuntu and she's been virus free (except for false positives sent by ClamAV when it found Win viruses that wouldn't run on Ubuntu but were in the browser or email caches) and quite happy with it. She does all her shopping, budgeting, email, and browsing on it, as well as type up Word docs in Abiword. The kids get on and play games in web pages, watch YouTube or download MP3 extractions from YouTube, or do their report projects in Abiword.

[SuperMike]

Wow. I would need superhuman powers to get my wife to agree to anything I want! :) Luckily she relies on me to do "computer stuff", so I just switched her computer over anyway, saying it had a virus. However, I am now officially and personally responsible for anything that "this Umberto thing" does that is in any way different from Windows. (What is the opposite of a superuser?). I think this is a micro-example of what Mr Shuttleworth will face if we manage to get ordinary users switching.

Sorry to digress, but I fully support this thread!

Too bad you didn't install Ubuntu and then, pixel by pixel, icon by icon, try to make it look as much like Windows XP as possible. I did this in my office on a PC that I needed to roll out for a scan center workstation -- I didn't want to scare the workers when they would find out they were going to be using Linux. I also found a plugin for Firefox that let me edit the titlebar and make it say Microsoft Internet Explorer.

I mean, this isn't ideal for every user, but for certain spouses and children who might freak if they find out they're not using Windows, it's an option. And then you can keep a spare Windows XP system on your home net that you can TS into with tsclient/rdesktop in case they absolutely have to have Windows.

On my spouse's PC, however, I told her she was going to be using a new kind of user-friendly Linux that she would like, and I only changed the Main Menu icon to look almost exactly like the Windows Start Menu (http://gnomelook.org/content/show.php?content=41095) and stuck an icon for Gnumeric on the desktop with an MS Excel icon and an icon for Abiword with an MS Word icon. (Note also that I had previously switched her to Firefox and Thunderbird while she was on Windows and got her to accept that first -- therefore, it wasn't such a dramatic transition.) My wife has, so far, been pleased with the results.

[SuperMike]

Make linux expensive, non-free and you will see people *will* start buying it....

God I hope not.

[teejay17]

God I hope not.
I agree. Expensive Ubuntu would be terrible.

[Tomosaur]

I hate to sound sceptic but history has shown that while people don't like being on the MS-leash they will more likely complain at first and then accept. It's the same thing every single time. When Windows 95 came out people complained about how incredibly large and bloated it was, but in a few years everyone forgot after their systems got upgraded. Many Windows 9x series users including myself swore to never touch XP and then time passes and you're left without support. This is exactly how it's going to be with Vista. In the end everyone (except us enlightened ones) will have to buy Vista. A few years from now computers will actually run that crap at great speeds too. The Linux user base isn't going to explode, it will keep growing slowly but steadily as is currently doing.

Only after other systems start making the store shelves is there going to be a big leap and for the near future it just doesn't seem probable.

You're forgetting that when Windows 95 came about - there was still no viable alternative to Windows. Linux was not in the state it was today, and Mac was more or less a joke compared to Windows. Windows, at the time, was far and away the best choice for people just getting into computers. Now, people are generally much more tech savvy, and, save the vocal idiot minority, are aware of the choices available to them. I don't know anyone who isn't at least of aware of OSX, and, when asked about why they use Windows, shrug and say 'that's what it came with'. This is the real problem. People don't choose Windows, they just get it. Most people are still not capable (or they're afraid) of building their own system from scratch, so they just buy one, and it comes with Windows. Linux has become very pervasive recently - and although people aren't adopting it at the rate we'd like - it still has a mental presence. When the time comes for people to make the switch to Vista, Linux should (hopefully) be a 'viable alternative', along with OSX. The next few months will be a decisive time in the OS wars, and for Ubuntu to become a major player, it needs to basically ram itself down people's throats while fixing the main problems - system configuration is still a mess, we need a control panel feature rather than dozens of 'optional' apps. Multimedia support is important, but I think there are better ways of solving the problem than having the required codecs etc included with the install. Some kind of event listener needs to be implemented - similar to how Windows Media Player asks you to download codecs if it can't find the correct one. It's not good enough to just close with an error.

[teejay17]

Multimedia support is important, but I think there are better ways of solving the problem than having the required codecs etc included with the install. Some kind of event listener needs to be implemented - similar to how Windows Media Player asks you to download codecs if it can't find the correct one. It's not good enough to just close with an error.Man, that's the best idea I've heard/read all day! Your idea is a fine solution to help future users understand that their computer needs a little fixin', rather than an all out panic because of a silly "error" message.
Event listener...can we get some developers to listen?

[jklappenbach]

What will thrust Ubuntu, along with the Linux platform in general, to take marketshare away from MS on the desktop?

1. An operating system shell that fosters seamless interop and integration between applications. DBus may be a step in the right direction.

2. Applications that are both necessary and compelling. OpenOffice is, again, a step in the right direction, but we need a Visio killer as well as a stable, robust Outlook killer. There are candidates, but they're not yet ready for prime time. Oh, and games, games, and more games.

3. A window management system that just shines. We need something based on OpenGL, not just nicely integrated with it. We should have cutting edge graphics and interfaces that set standards. Again, we're getting there, but not yet. Mark is right to place "eye candy" high on the list of priorities.

All in all, it's been an exciting journey so far. I use Ubuntu every day, for development as well as personal tasks. I've grown fond of it over the years, and it's been simply fantastic to see how quickly it has matured. In only 12 months, it has taken over the Linux world by storm, and has gathered enough interest to place it on the minds of those who would otherwise never have thought of Linux.

[teaker1s]

or just do as I did asked grandparents what they wanted to do on computer and built a wireless edgy box for them and kind of forgot at Christmas to fix their windows computer as it's an endless spyware/virus nightmare;)

thunderbird in my opinion is no worse than outlook

[Josey]

I think it will happen... it's evolution.

******* is all about limiting what people can do with computers and then selling you more options.

Linux is all about user freedom. People are constantly coming up with new ideas and a better computing experience without thinking about how they will profit off of it. It's a labor of love instead of a tedious task.

Ubuntu will come out on top in the long run if it stays on it's current track.

[macogw]

s. Easily selectable by the Accessories menu, Ubuntu needs an option to make a snazzy alarm clock out of it that wakes the PC up from hibernation (or monitor hibernation) and plays music (MP3, Ogg, etc.) from a folder, cycling them at random, or tunes into an audio stream from a particular location like something you'd find on Shoutcast. When the alarm goes off, the screen could display a big clock that could be visible from a distance. You hit the spacebar to snooze and hit enter to stop the alarm clock. If you wait more than 15 minutes, it can also optionally buzz the internal PC speaker (without need of a sound card). To continue with the music while one cleans up and dresses, they can hit M for music and X to close the app.

That'd be FREAKING SWEET! I know there's an alarm clock app (dclock), but it's not very loud.
Oh, xmms has a plugin called xmms-alarm that does that. Beep Media Player has bmp-alarm


w. Now that you have cable or DSL, if you do, then do you have an unused modem port in your PC? Great, map a phone line through it and use Ubuntu as an elaborate answering machine that can attempt to interpret the audio into text, then attach a super-compressed (lossy compression) audio file of the message, and save it on your PC so that you can mount the maildir with Thunderbird and interact with it like you do with email. And this should come with a default Ubuntu system -- you just add the applet to your panel. And why? Because it's cool and quite possible.
That looks fun too! hmm...

[wersdaluv]

I think, what we need is more love for the newbs. We need more people like aysiu and more comprehensive sites like monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing or even much more comprehensive. I think, something like ubuntuclips.org should be improved. The idea is good but I think, more people should contribute to it.

Whenever a newbie switches, what he/she needs is so much support or else, if he/she is impatient, he/she will end up going back to windows. As for me, it's a good thing I am patient and I accidentally deleted all my Windows files when I was trying to dual boot that's why I'm stuck with Ubuntu. As I am trying to learn more about Linux, I am reading the f manual, but I think it's not enough. I think, if I have a friend who will teach me about Linux, I would not be studying this hard but I don't know anyone who uses Linux. All I have is online support. If the online support for the newbs gets twice as good as it is now, we will see much more Linux users.

When there are more Linux users, there will be more 3rd party support and so on...

[Ocxic]

ctrl-alt-esc and click on the app to kill, it doesn't get any easier then that.

And don'r argue the ctrl-alt-del new users to windows don't know about that iether.

x taken care of

[aysiu]

ctrl-alt-esc and click on the app to kill, it doesn't get any easier then that. I thought Control-Alt-Escape was a KDE thing. Is that in Gnome now, too?

[macogw]

I thought Control-Alt-Escape was a KDE thing. Is that in Gnome now, too?

Doesn't work in my Gnome. alt+f2 "xkill" click works

[Fnordle]

Since I always get sent to the 'Linux isn't Windows' site I'll post my favorite bit.



If you really just want Windows without the malware and security issues: Read up on good security practices; install a good firewall, malware-detector, and anti-virus; replace IE with a more secure browser; and keep yourself up-to-date with security updates. There are people out there (myself included) who've used Windows since 3.1 days right through to XP without ever being infected with a virus or malware: you can do it too. Don't get Linux: It will fail miserably at being what you want it to be.

If you really want the security and performance of a Unix-based OS but with a customer-focussed attitude and an world-renowned interface: Buy an Apple Mac. OS X is great. But don't get Linux: It will not do what you want it to do.


I don't think Linux will ever conquer Bug #1 while this attitude is prevalent. It simply doesn't seem to want to give people what they want (Windows without the trouble) then I just don't see it ever gaining significant marketshare.

[aysiu]

I don't believe the author of that article is a Ubuntu developer.

[teejay17]

If you really just want Windows without the malware and security issues: Read up on good security practices; install a good firewall, malware-detector, and anti-virus; replace IE with a more secure browser; and keep yourself up-to-date with security updates. There are people out there (myself included) who've used Windows since 3.1 days right through to XP without ever being infected with a virus or malware: you can do it too. Don't get Linux: It will fail miserably at being what you want it to be.

If you really want the security and performance of a Unix-based OS but with a customer-focussed attitude and an world-renowned interface: Buy an Apple Mac. OS X is great. But don't get Linux: It will not do what you want it to do.
Look at all the complicated steps involved in getting a secure Windows box. Although the author probably didn't intend it, said author actually undermined the argument and made the statement pro-Linux. Talk about irony: "Don't get Linux: It will fail miserably at being what you want it to be" translates into "install Linux if you don't feel like installing a good firewall, malware-detector, and anti-virus; replace IE with a more secure browser" and so on.

[riven0]

I don't think Linux will ever conquer Bug #1 while this attitude is prevalent. It simply doesn't seem to want to give people what they want (Windows without the trouble) then I just don't see it ever gaining significant marketshare.

I just don't agree with that attitude, because the fact is Linux is not Windows, and was never intended to be. The reason why I ditched Windows for Linux is because Linux is completely different. I never would have switched if Linux was just another Windows clone with better security, and I think it's wrong to expect it to be.

Those who want Linux to be another Windows are better off with just using Windows. I'm not trying to be elitist here - anyone who knows me understands that I'm the biggest n00b around :p - but that's the way I see it. Linux is for people who want something different.

[aysiu]

I just don't agree with that attitude, because the fact is Linux is not Windows, and was never intended to be. I think Fnordle was referring mainly to this part of the quotation:
If you really want the security and performance of a Unix-based OS but with a customer-focussed attitude and an world-renowned interface: Buy an Apple Mac. OS X is great. But don't get Linux: It will not do what you want it to do.

[Fnordle]

I just don't agree with that attitude, because the fact is Linux is not Windows, and was never intended to be. The reason why I ditched Windows for Linux is because Linux is completely different. I never would have switched if Linux was just another Windows clone with better security, and I think it's wrong to expect it to be.

Those who want Linux to be another Windows are better off with just using Windows. I'm not trying to be elitist here - anyone who knows me understands that I'm the biggest n00b around :p - but that's the way I see it. Linux is for people who want something different.
You'd have a point if it wasn't for the author advising people to get OSX, which is essentially Unix just as Linux is, and the interface in OSX is massively different from Windows.

You can make Ubuntu look just like Windows just by moving everything to the bottom bar, its the same interface, just laid out differently, (start button, show desktop button, system tray, task bar, clock, quick launch) yet to make either platform look & behave like OSX you need to add many 3rd party apps as it truly is a different take on the idea.

It seems to me what the author is implying is that the hand holding, automation and intuitive discoverable interfaces that you expect in Windows and OSX are missing in Linux, which I agree with, and with the flexibility it brings also adds a level of difficulty which most people just aren't willing to deal with the same way people are not willing to become a mechanic to own a car. It's this that seems at odds with Bug #1.

I've also been referenced to this article many times, and seen it on this forum and never seen anyone say anything against it so I can only assume that this is the common attitude. Not that I am making any judgements I just think that you need to focus on what people want to cure bug #1 rather than expecting people to see the light and change to a totally different approach - I just don't see it working large-scale.

[aysiu]

I've also been referenced to this article many times, and seen it on this forum and never seen anyone say anything against it so I can only assume that this is the common attitude. I would say that's because the title of the article is true, and the article also makes a lot of good points. I don't think many people here would agree with the article 100%, though. I know I certainly don't. A lot of open source projects are this sort of do-it-yourself, non-commercial venture, but Ubuntu is not one of those, nor is Mepis or Red Hat or Linspire or SLED. It's not always about what's just fun for some developer. A lot of projects are focused on the end-user. Otherwise, there'd be no point in bullet-proof-x being a priority specification for Feisty.

[euler_fan]

IMHO, no matter how hard someone tries to define what something should be used for, it is the end user who really gets do decide. So, as a new end user, this is why I switched:

I'm perfectly fine with the Ubuntu philosophy and all that, but I see my operating system as a tool. Ergo, when I went looking for another one (I need XP to run a few things I just can't get on linux), I was concerned about finding the right tool for my needs.

I want to:
1) take full advantage of open source/GPL/freeware applications (being a poor college student) for scientific/mathematical/statistical computing and programming. Euler, YACAS, MAXIMA, R, GCC, etc. It just seemed like the best tools are most avaiable (or only avaliable) for *nix.
2) something with a good reputation for stability and usability out of the box (being a busy college student). I will admit I've spent alot of hours scouring the forums for howtos to get my wireless running and to configure ClamAV, ossec-hids, etc (sorry, kind of paranoid from using windows).

Ubuntu fits the bill, and after trying the live CD, I liked what I saw and switched over.

By the same token, the paradigm that broght me to ubuntu is why I will probably use OpenBSD or EnGuarde for a home-brewed email/web-server and remote desktop for crunching numbers. They have great reputations because/and (from what I've read) they are quality products. Right tool for the right job. Note: I will probably be connecting from a laptop running Xubuntu. :)

Thanks for reading,

Euler_fan