On 4/18/06, Juan Alberto Cirez <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I don't want to add more fuel to the fire (I realized I am preaching to
> the converted here; of which I am one). My point (in case you missed it)
> was not to negate the efforts and progress Linux has made over the
> years; but rather to illustrate a simple reality (which seems to have
> escaped most everyone): Windows is the number one desktop OS. Linux is
> not. Windows is supported by most--if not all--OEMs; Linux is not. A
> blind monkey can install, and use windows productively. With Linux, on
> the other hand, such monkey would need to be a bit smarter than the
> average Congo gorilla(which all of us on this list are). Yes, we are and
> will continue to make progress to make Linux easier to use to the
> average user; but even then we will need the support of "Aristocratic
> Society" to become a "mainstream", desktop OS.
>
How easy or hard either Windows or Linux is to install doesn't really
connect with how they are rated by OEMs or users. OEMs employ the
geekiest of the geeks to figure out how to make an OS work on their
hardware, then clone that out a bazillion times. Your average home
user, on the other hand, has never, ever, ever seen a Windows install.
Ease of installation is a total non-issue. They bought their
computer with Windows on it, and when it gets old they buy a new
computer with Windows on it. Linux, or to give a specific example,
Ubuntu, is pretty darn easy to install. I haven't counted exactly,
but I don't think the Ubuntu asks any more questions, and possibly
asks fewer (because it skips the whole networking section and "just
does it"), than a typical Windows install. However, again, your
average user, if Linux were as big as Windows on the desktop, would
never know that. Windows is #1 on the desktop not because it's easy
to install, but because it's there when you turn on the new computer
you just brought home from the store.
As for how easy it is to "use", and to be "productive", well that's a
subjective debate that just can't be won, and has nothign to do with
how "literate" a user is. KDE, GNOME, Windows, DOS, Mac, Amiga, C64,
it's unending and unresolvable. People use what they know, and they
learn it because they for some reason want to, or have to know it.
Most people aren't interested in computers as a toy or a philosophy,
so they fall into the "have to know it" category. 20 years ago people
turned on their computers and got "C>" on the screen. That was easy
to use? That was "friendly"? And yet that system has dominated the
world since then (in various flavours). Why? Because it's what they
saw at work ("have to know it"), and so it's what they expected when
they got home. Linux on the desktop will be driven by the business
community, and it's already started.
> Also, the reason Linux has gained such respect and popularity as a
> server OS is simply because Most Systems Administrators (even the
> Windows ones) have a greater understanding of computer systems than the
> average users (and in most cases do have a say in the kind of network
> hardware/software that it is used in their environment) and can more
> easily grasp the advantages of using Linux over Windows in a server
> environment. You can argue all you want about the effects of disruptive
> technology and the power of grass-root movements; but not until either
> the average users becomes more computer literate or the OEMs throw their
> support behind Linux 'en masse' will Linux become all that it was meant to.
>
Computer use/selection has always been, and for the foreseeable future
will be driven by the system administrators. Your "average computer
user" today is no more computer literate, nor do they need to be more
computer literate, than they were 20 years ago. They are a
contradiction, these "average" users, in that they are both better
eductated and payed than the average population, and yet just as much
sheep as the average population. They buy and use what's in front of
them, because it's what the sysadmin told them to use. If you
converted a whole business to Linux desktops, then people would know
it, use it, and expect it when they got home. I agree with Aaron,
it's with the vendors now, but they're still waiting for a
"something", and that "something" is, I think, more business desktops
running Linux, because then people will know it from work. And that's
happening now. My wife's last place of work (not a "computer" company
in any way) had an application which ran on Linux. I'm still a bit
fuzzy on the details, whether it was a VMWare-type session or a remote
X sort of thing (I never saw it action), but when my wife comes home
from work and says "Redhat? Ya, we've got that at work", that tells
me it's getting out there. And how? Because the sysadmin said that's
the best way to run the app they needed, so that's what they used.
Which is, in the end, a "grassroots" movement. The user and the OEM
are both waiting for the sysadmin to finish his job of getting the
word out.
Ian
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