Discussion on:

Ease of use: But for who?

...until you made your first bullet point, the one about making alternative office apps import and export MS formats 100%. The issue doesn't exist due to a lack of trying; instead, it's probably because the wizards in Redmond keep making 100% compatability with MS formats a moving (and in some cases proprietary) target.

In fact, I'm already starting to see a few .docx attachments in my office email - doesn't do me much good when I'm running OpenOffice in a nearly 100% Linux/FOSS enviroment. Microsoft simply wants to create yet another proprietary format and get so many people using it that it becomes a de facto standard, thereby locking everyone in to their particular office suite (and, by extension, possibly their OS). OOXML is really not that open after all because you need to run Office 2007 to even touch it. How can they even call that an "open" standard while keeping a straight face?

One of the reasons I went the FOSS route was to avoid the insidious vendor lock-in so often encountered with Microsoft products. It will be a cold day in Hell before I go back down that path.

the only reason i put that bullet point in there was because the "average Jane/Joe" user wouldn't be savvy enough to know that the insipid docx format can not current go back and forth.

otherwise i would merely said "make sure it follows open document standards".

I see your point, and you're right: Joe Sixpack wouldn't know any differently and would just keep drinking the Kool-Aid. Of course, I'm sure this is exactly what Ballmer & company are counting on.

I've taken the liberty of responding to emails with .docx attachments by stating that our company does not accept anything with that particular extension as it is actually non-standard (and may eventually have to be opened by someone else using something other than Office 2007 in the future). So far no one's had an issue with our request to switch to something a little more common.

Jack's original bullet point was correct. This new version is entirely incorrect. Making your documents inacceible to well over 90% of the people on the planet for some political point is just foolish; you are cutting off your entire leg to spite your small toe.

The "Open XML" format (or whatever Microsoft has called it) is "open" and publushed enough for OpenOffice (or anything else) to support it. If OpenOffice does not support it, take it up with them, it is now on their shoulders. Likewise, ODF has been around long enough that I would expect Microsoft Office to support it, and I yell about them not doing so.

This is an opportunity for OpenOffice to prove that FOSS works better than propietary software. Instead of sitting around grumbling politics and not supporting the Open XML format, OpenOffice should be supporting it, show that they are usable by a lot of folks who currently use Microsoft Office. Open XML is the new Microsoft Office format standard, and therefore the new standard for an overwhelming majority of computer users, as the slowly transition to Office 2007. Not supporting it makes Linux harder.

Then again, that has *always* been Linux's problem. Too many of the people involved with it use it for political reasons. As a result, it is *deliberately difficult to use*. That's right, the issue that Jack has highlighted here is deliberate. "Oh, such and such way of doing things? No way! That is too much like Microsoft/Apple/Sun/IBM/Novell/whoever! Let's do something reall different!" is the attitude.

That is one major reason why I prefer the BSD's, the politics are much less angsty, and as a result, they work better with other companies.

J.Ja

I never considered any of the other reasons.

I'll shut up now.
lol

Dan

It's worth noting that OpenXML may be a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation. It's not just "politics" that makes open source and open standards advocates angst over Microsoft's standards proposal. There's also the simple fact that the proposed "standard" is so poorly specified that adhering to the standard in no way guarantees -- or even greatly increases the likelihood of -- compatibility between office suites.

Damned if you do: If OpenOffice.org developers choose to support OpenXML (which I'm sure it will, once the developers get around to navigating through the spaghetti in the standard specification), it will have similar compatibility problems to the problems it currently has with Microsoft's binary DOC format. Unfortunately, because OpenXML will be a "standard" now (one assumes Microsoft ultimately won't lose that battle), most people will think that the OpenOffice.org developers have no excuse for failing to achieve interoperability with MS Office, and will chalk the failure up to open source development incompetence, even though nothing could be farther from the truth of the matter. This is, of course, probably exactly what Microsoft wants.

Damned if you don't: I think your attitude pretty much sums up how OpenOffice.org and the open source world in general will be regarded if OO.o doesn't provide support for OpenXML formats.

De-geekification of open source, or de-geekification of the open source image? I tend to find the extra options and control offered by GNU/Linux & opensource handy, or at least interesting. I always found the lack of a command line interface for Windows kind of annoying. That being said, I think open source software could do itself a favor by offering less "geeky" versions, or simply don't advertise these attributes to the general market. Maybe have an install option to take out the geek portions of the interface. Heck, how many office folk use the full extent of something like Excel? There's probably plenty of users who never even have to lay out a workbook, they just do data entry. Do they freak out over the 89 context menu items they never touch, or worry about VBscript and macros? Come here Clippit, good boy. More consistent UI would be a good idea, across products and versions, but then, even MS seems to be going the other way with that right now. Desktop-wise, I don't know why more people don't try something open source. Too many people have asked me why they can't have their desktop set up in such-n-such a way, but sometimes it isn't possible with Windows (I guess that's why there are Windows replacement shells). Open source seems to offer more customization options. For some people, this may be "too many" options, like turning on Detail view in Explorer. I've met people who run Windows and never even use Explore as a file manager. If users can ignore huge swaths of the Windows OS, they can probably ignore geeky options in open source software. Options to not have options would be nice, but I think open source would benefit even more from a different marketing tactic, simply not highlighting advanced options. Of course, your list of areas for improvement, I think, is a given.

To be honest, a huge part of the problem is, every attempt to make Linux (or other *nix's) friendly for non-developers seems to involve a desktop manager based on X11. Guess what? YOU CAN'T PUT LIPSTICK ON THAT PIG. Period. There is no bloody way, for all of the wizards and such out there, you can make a system "easy to use for a non-geek" where even the slightest breakage involves trolling through endless piles of configuration files. Yeah, I can just see my grandmother running xconf. I have never run xconf and had it produce something workable that did what I wanted it to do. Heck, I get stuck on the monitor resolution end of things. And this is from someone with 20+ years of computing experience, many of them on Solaris and BSD, who can admin a full *Nix server from bash! If I can't use X11 systems and get them to work, what makes you think the average user can? Heck, it is a system so tricky, it reverses the terms "client" and "server" in its documentation, and unless you know X11 really well (and understand the reason behind the reversal), you cannot even properly understand the manpages for X11!

Using X11 systems truly is "developers developing for the developers". Instead of taking the easy way out, which is to mostly ignore the plumbing and work on the "fun" stuff like the UI (and the end mess is GNOME and KDE), maybe someone should write an entirely new and better UI on top of the Linux kernel, and start from scratch. As far as I know, this is the route Apple took when they turned the Mach kernel and BSD userland and transformed it into OS X. And it seems to have worked out a lot better than KDE or GNOME.

J.Ja

actually, x isn't that bad, you just have to understand the way the .conf is set up.
Xorg is the new, modular version of x11.

Still the same thing, in terms of the difficulty factor. In fact, modular *Nix style stuff, while being better for an admin, are even harder for the average user. It also makes things harder for tewch support, if it even existed. As much as I like and appreciate *Nix's modular approach from a power user point of view, as a regular user, it stinks.

"you just have to understand the way the .conf is set up."

And then we wonder why average users can't understand it? It took my mother years to understand *email*.

J.Ja

I don't care if x11/xorg is too much hassle for your liking. You're entitled to your opinion. But I do take offense to the example you used:

"It took my mother years to understand *email*."



That's because she was instructed merely in use of the interface, not the underlying concepts. If an "email consortium" existed like IEEE or IANA for their respective subjects, they wouldn't explain email to my mother the way I did, with a tour of a particular email client app or webmail app. But, she and I both wanted to just get her message sent, to accomplish the immediate goal and get on with life, simply and easily. Sound familiar?

Quality instruction would have required that I told her about the protocols, headers, and addressing rules before mentioning the existence of email clients. Then, she could have sat down in front of emacs or Outlook and, with equal ease, quickly figured out for herself how either platform performs the functions universal to "email", because she understands the essentials of how the programs work -- or, if you prefer, what they really do. It's a bit of both.

Instead, we "teach" non-programmers (especially personal acquaintances who are not enrolled in a formal, costly class) by taking them on a tour of the menus of whatever program has been bestowed upon them by circumstance, then leave them alone. This is what my friends and family want, generally, but it isn't what's best for them. More important, it isn't what's best for me. They just make more trouble to call me about later that way.

Is it the same with you? Did your mother take "years to understand *email," beginning with a tutorial in the use of whatever client was provided by her ISP? Then, she changed ISP, or for whatever reason switched to a new email client, and had to "learn all over". After 3 or 4 of these changes, she noticed that elements like send/reply all/forward/reply, To:/From:/Cc:/Bcc: are fairly ubiquitous, as are username & password, and she hypothesizes as to which consistencies are neither coincidence nor shared artistic vision of the app/page designers, and deduced that the remainder of those commonalities are necessitated by what email "really is", and thus, after *years*, understands email.

It's actually a testament to human intelligence that anybody instructed as an "end user" of software ever learns any of it, as they all have to put together all the underlying theory we could have explained to them in the first place, saving all parties several tutorials on use of specific apps, none of which added anything to the user experience, nor, I'll warrant, to familial bonds.

I think the programming paradigm needs an overhaul, starting with the assumption that average users can't understand it.

Drawing conclusions on end-users' ability to learn from Linux documentation leads to spurious deductions, because their intended audience already knows the background information, or is strongly motivated to learn it. If you're not willing to learn xorg/x11, maybe Linux is not for you, or if it is you just need to check the compatibility of the hardware you intend to use, a little more carefully than under your current enabler. Anyway, nobody said that would be easy.

Good documentation, an example of which might be an email client at my college back when email was not a common household appliance, would explain more than just what happens on the screen with various menu selections. It would describe what's happening to the data, and give the user an appreciation of why the program design is good -- or why it isn't! That may be part of why good software documentation can't be bought. Some is available for free though. Squid, for example, is a breeze to setup using only its .conf file, which is well commented. I'd wager even your mother could understand it.

# for now

Way back when, many (if not most) of the men in car owning households knew how an awful lot about cars. After all, they needed to. Water pumps would die every 10 - 20 thousand miles, for example. You were constantly maintaining the car, and so you tried to bring it to the mechanic only for the big things, or else you would go broke. Likewise for TV's; a friend of mine is in his 50's, he still remembers how to troubleshoot and repair a vacuum tube TV. And as a result, everyone knew just a touch of the underlying principles, to help them with their day-to-day tasks, because hiccups were common.

We are at that same point today with computers. Current models are the Model T, cheap enough to penetrate deeply, but still clunky enough and not reliable enough for people to not have to worry much about the maintenance.

I know it is a bit off topic, but it is important. I know that the end users are perfectly capable of understanding the stuff. But do they want to learn it? And, *should* they have to learn it? If someone told you that you really should learn the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine to own a car, you would tell them they were nuts. I agree 100% with you that knowing the fundamentals makes these things a heck of a lot smoother to use. But that speaks volumes about the state of the art. This industry, despite producing "technology sufficient enough to appear to be magic" is still quite in its infancy.

J.Ja

If someone told you that you really should learn the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine to own a car, you would tell them they were nuts.

As a matter of fact, I would not. Since learning that little levers on the wall control light sources, I have always wanted to know "how" the tools that I use do what they do. Although taking the driver test on a manual transmission annoyed me, I would have liked, if anything, to know more about the internals of the engine, the braking system, engine lubrication and temperature regulation. Once I'm steering 5,000 pounds of metal over a (relatively) narrow band of asphalt at 100+ kph, I really don't want to guess what might be causing that funny smell and blood-curdling noise.

I know it is a bit off topic, but it is important. I know that the end users are perfectly capable of understanding the stuff. But do they want to learn it?

I think many of them do, but have an exaggerated estimate of the associated challenge, in the form of a 4-year CS degree. One can do a friggin lot of damage with a single semester course in SQL, in today's businesses. Add to that a moderate desire to learn, and the sky's the limit.

And, *should* they have to learn it?

Only if they want to work for me, or a similarly demanding employer.

I'm of the same feeling you are here. I love finding out what makes something work, and I love talking about it too. But I really feel like we are not the majority of people. Too often I hear, "don't tell me why it works, just show me what button to push." If there were more people like us, why do the "Dummies" books sell so well?

I also beleive that, as an industry, we've overhyped the perception difficulty in order to maintain our own "wizard" status. After all, it is tough to justify salaries that are much higher than other office workers with equivalent experience and education (often less, I know a lot of programmers without degrees of any type) if what we do is perceived as no more difficult than making sense of the accounting books, or trying to get insurance claims processed, or whatever. Plus, it feels good to have a job that is "harder" than everyone else's. In reality, I think that we have a case of industry ego, which really works against us. Everyone *loves* to see IT get knocked down a peg or two because of it.

J.Ja

...the difference between a mature consumer product, and an imature one. Autos today are pretty much mature products; the average user does not need to know very much about what makes it work in order to get reliable performance and long life out of it. It took the auto industry about 50 years to get to that point. Televisions are a similar example; it took much tweaking and maintenance to keep a TV working. Now, anyone can walk out of big-box store and plug one in.

PCs today are certainly much closer to maturity than they were 15 years ago. But Windows PCs certainly still have a long way to go. (I think of them as 50-era cars; they sure look advanced compared to the previous generation, but they are not well built and do not last very long at all)

Linux is much farther from being what I'd consider a "consumer" product. It still requires far more knowledge and skill than the average user is willing to invest in.

If by "mature" you mean "designed to make it seem like you need less knowledge than you actually do" . . .

Well, I guess it doesn't really matter if someone's able to copy your credit card numbers from your online transactions, use your computer to send spam to thousands of people, and set up an FTP archive of kiddie porn on your hard drive, as long as everything still looks like it's working according to the sleek new Vista UI.

I might suggest that it's more "mature" than say, DOS. (or even Linux in a consumer-friendliness aspect) But considering it's weaknesses and proclivity for disasterous failure within a very sort time, I'd say it's nowhere near "mature" as it should be compared to other consumer electronics products.

"If someone told you that you really should learn the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine to own a car, you would tell them they were nuts."

Actually, if you told me that, I'd agree. You can pick up the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine in about twenty minutes -- and that little bit of knowledge could save you hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of a lifetime, regardless of how "user friendly" your car gets.

Cars, like computers, will always (for some definition of "always") have technical issues. If you don't know enough to determine whether they're issues you can fix yourself without being a technical professional, you're in for a world of hurt -- and you'll probably never know how much damage that lack of information can cost you.

It might take as much as an hour to learn similarly useful fundamentals about computers. Doing so can help a heck of a lot over the course of a lifetime: it can help you save money, time, and a lot of aggravation. Who knows -- maybe it'll even prevent some stroke, heart attack of aneurism when your computer sees fit to lose all of your most important files somewhere down the road.

Part of the reason for all the aggravating apparent inability of most end users to do anything intelligent is simply that they don't really comprehend the whys and wherefores of what they're doing. Consider that the next time you have to provide tech support because some "nontechnical" relative lost all of his or her files, got a system infected with spyware, managed to hose up email configuration, or any of a thousand other things.

Things don't progress to a point where knowing the basics doesn't help any longer. They just get to a point where you think it doesn't help, at which point you end up spending four thousand dollars for a professional to replace your spark plugs. At most, it should cost you an hour to learn the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine, twenty minutes to rule out the lack of fuel, air, or compression as the source of your engine's problem, another twenty perhaps to check out the various possible (and easily checked) reasons that you aren't getting any spark, and whatever the going rate is for a set of spark plugs and a spark plug socket for your wrench.

The fact that cars come with electronic diagnostic systems, "automatic" transmissions, and CD players that can play MP3s in no way changes that.

I agree completely here... I have learned this lesson too, too many times to count, that understanding the fundamentals of something always makes the experience better. For example, when my browser starts kicking out a ton of "server not found" errors, I immediately check my cable modem for a problem, instead of hammering the site over and over hoping it goes away. Likewise, when my tranny starts to slip a little, I immediately check the fluid level, instead of ignoring it until a $3,000 repair bill is needed.

But in my experience, it is precisely this stance of curiosity about the world around us that a) makes us good with computers and b) got us into computers. Most of the day-to-day, non-IT folks I deal with just have zero curiosity about these things, they kind of stumble through the world and things either work or they don't, and if they don't work, you pay a professional to repair it, or you replace it.

Look at certain open source companies... so many companies, despite having IT departments FILLED with really smart people, do not feel comfortable using software without the priviledge of calling someone paid to support that application; without that internalized fear, companies like MySQL AB, RedHat, Novell, and more, simply would not exist (not that it would be a *bad* thing for some of those companies...).

It really is human nature. No one has time to become even remotely familiar with even the "fundamentals" of everything they do and use each day. Sometimes it makes their life harder, sometimes it doesn't matter. Many people fail to understand the terms of their credit cards, and pay a dear price. Other people do not know how a laser printer works, and they are able to print just fine.

At the end of the day, the remarks about the maturity of the industry are right on. This is still an immature industry, and we have quite a ways to go before computers will be at the level of, say, the basic POTS phone.

J.Ja

"If someone told you that you really should learn the fundamentals of the internal combustion engine to own a car, you would tell them they were nuts."

I may not exactly tell him he's nuts, but I wouldn't waste my time learning it. I have only a theoretical knowledge of a four-stroke engine with no practical experience besides replacing a battery. (appy, I don't know that this knowledge has ever saved me a penny, but maybe I'm just not aware of it.) I couldn't tell you squat about any major systems besides the engine itself: steering, suspension, transmission, electrical system. Sure, I could learn it, but there are other things I'm interested in. I'm not a "gear head" and my car is strictly a tool for transportation. And yet somehow I'm able to OPERATE a car adequately and legally, and my wife drives better than I with less mechanical knowledge.

Isn't that all Joe Keyboard is looking for from his computer? For him, it's an appliance, not a hobby. Expecting him to edit a configuration file is like expecting him to get out a timing gun or set the gap on his spark plugs.

I don't know how to use a timing light, either. If the problem with the timing isn't simply that it's 180 degrees out of place, I'm not the guy to have trying to adjust the timing on your car.

I'm talking more about things on the level of knowing where to find a spark plug so you can unscrew the damned thing and put in a new one. I'm talking about knowing just enough about computers so that you can do some broad view diagnosis beyond the level of "It's broke. Restart the computer. Sometimes that works."

. . . which, by the way, doesn't actually fix anything.

And, if all you want to do with your computer is be a Windows sysadmin, I assure you, I have no interest in competing with you for your job. I just don't want to be personally limited by your disinterest.

I may not exactly tell him he's nuts, but I wouldn't waste my time learning it.

I would not describe time spent learning as wasted unless I learned something untrue. As long as what I learn is true, it has the potential to be useful, or "merely" interesting.

I'm not a "gear head" and my car is strictly a tool for transportation.

You may be as strict as you please, with the use of your property. For my time, I choose the advantage Linux provides me, in establishing de factocontrol of the subset of my property whose purpose is computational. My computer is not meant to be accessible to script kiddies. If you don't care enough to not use Windows, that is your choice to make -- and if any problem results, that problem is also yours, not mine.

Isn't that all Joe Keyboard is looking for from his computer? For him, it's an appliance, not a hobby. Expecting him to edit a configuration file is like expecting him to get out a timing gun or set the gap on his spark plugs.

I have no expectation of Joe Keyboard's use of his property, whatsoever. As long as he does not attempt to use mine, all is well.

Why is it you can't see that applies equally to all computer users? Some people want to run Windows. It's nothing against Linux or you.

"if all you want to do with your computer is be a Windows sysadmin"

Incorrect assumption. All I want to do with my HOME computer is be a Windows USER. I care enough to run all the appropriate security software, which I admit I get at the company volume license discount. What I do professionally is another matter. I'm slowly pursuing Linux at work, but I have other things I prefer doing off the clock. That doesn't mean I don't like Linux; I'll freely acknowledge it's superiority. But there are only so many things I can do in with my personal time, and I regard using that time to learn Linux (or learning to drive a manual transmission, or learning to play Bridge, or learning banjo playing, or any of a zillion other things) as a waste of it. Opportunity costs; you can only do so much with your time, and for me the payback for learning Linux on my time is minimal. Even if I woke up tomorrow morning knowing everything there was to know about Linux, with Linus T. calling me for support, I still wouldn't spend my personal time wiping my home Windows system. Hell, I haven't even bothered loading it as a VM at home.

"Why is it you can't see that applies equally to all computer users? Some people want to run Windows."

I doubt that. I think, in fact, they don't know what they're running, and wouldn't tolerate it if they did. "Ease of use" was always a sorry excuse for accepting Windows' insecurity, and Ubuntu has finally put that one to rest, as well.

In general, I think the analogies you're using exaggerate the difficulty of typing 'man [package]' at the command prompt, navigating to a .conf file and making a couple changes, which in every case I've seen, are well-documented. Compare this to Windows drivers CDs, and the time factor is in favor of Linux, while complexity is *slightly* in favor of Windows. But, include the Windows registry, and then you're talking about something truly incomprehensible, with no equivalent or analog in Linux, which suddenly wins hands-down, in terms of overall ease of use.

I can see the appeal of Windows to corporate "desktop administrators" who are systematically overpaid for a proprietary collection of knowledge, not skill, but for the rest of the world, Windows is nothing but a scam, a waste of time, and an unjustified security risk.

P: "Some people want to run Windows."
a: "I doubt that."

Then I'm afraid we've reached an impasse on this one. We're working from two opposed starting points. That didn't keep me from having a good time, but I don't see any way either of us is going to change the other's mind on this basic point.

Thanks.

"In general, I think the analogies you're using exaggerate the difficulty of typing 'man [package]' at the command prompt, navigating to a .conf file and making a couple changes, which in every case I've seen, are well-documented."

Yes, it's all well documented. But "Joe User" doesn't want to understand documentation. He wants to plug it in and have it work NOW. He's willing to risk the possible problems later, if he's even aware of them. Because frankly, he can't be troubled with something as cryptic and archaic as a "command prompt".

"'Joe User' doesn't want to understand documentation. He wants to plug it in and have it work NOW."

In that case, he's in for a rude awakening -- because even if he gets a system with MS Windows pre-loaded he's going to run into some things that simply don't work "NOW", and require some fiddling. Meanwhile, you can get systems with Linux distributions pre-loaded that work at least as well, so the gap in usability in which you seem to have absolute faith, and believe with all your heart, is looking pretty scant.


"he can't be troubled with something as cryptic and archaic as a 'command prompt'."

Who said anything about a "command prompt"? Use xman for those manual pages and whatever editor you like for the config file you need. Here are a couple images of what xman looks like in my window manager:

http://sob.apotheon.org/img/demo/xman_browse.png
http://sob.apotheon.org/img/demo/xman_help.png

What could be simpler? It'd be nice if MS Windows' help system was anywhere near as easy to use and well-organized as the online Unix manual.

"Joe User" doesn't do "manuals". He does "plug-n-pray". When that doesn't work, he calls the 800 number.

Until the more of the Linux community figures this out, Linux will continue to be a bit player on the desktop.

disagree totally.

Windows, Linux, Mac, what ever. First thing Joe user does is run to a knowledgeable friend. Joe user is a cheap bastard, and does not want to speak to someone that does not speak the same language as he is. And most 800 numbers are outsourced to other countries. Which means, Joe user can't understand a fkn word they are saying. And Joe user is most likely going to have an pay to listen to someone he can't understand. That will last about 30 seconds before Joe User tells tech support... Your 800 number to fk off.

Sorry, your wrong. Why don't you read up on how much Joe user thinks that tech support SUCKS with all your proprietary software.

wrong answer, sorry. If joe user runs to the knowledgeable friend. There are more and more knowledgeable friends that use linux. So again, wrong answer.

Hell, I'll even carry this further. How many web sites do you see where there are tutorials on cars, furniture, tech, and other things. Why do you think they are there? Well damn, its because Joe user is a cheap bastard and wants to learn how to do things without paying. Why do you think Joe user bought the damn computer? Other then the porn that is. I'll lay money Joe user already looks up stuff on Microsoft, why wouldn't he for Linux.

Dan

"'Joe User' doesn't do 'manuals'."

I "love" the way you put a "word" in "quotation marks", and this somehow makes it "bad" in your "eyes".

It doesn't prove anything, but it sure is entertaining.

(edit: I "forgot" some quotes around a word.)

My Mac is almost one week old.

My background goes all the way to keypunch. But I spent a great deal of time on Windows.

I was bi-lingual in the System 7 days. I learned OSX. I can manage CLI UNIX BSD.

But thee is a learning curve that I cannot dispute. Regardless, I seem to be managing it.

Joe User's paradigm will shift when given enough reason to change. Mine did. And I am happy for the change.

Now if I could just get used to this keyboard!




Edit- missed a critical digit

...I don't need to "up on how much Joe user thinks". I deal with them every single day. And yes, I know customer support sucks. But at least it exists.

Why don't you get out of your cave and deal with some real people for a change?

Users will come to friends before they call your b.s. tech support. Haven't you learned that from dealing with users?

Guess not. You must suck then, because they don't want to deal with you.

I have people come to me and complain ALL THE TIME about tech support. You must be a primary example of what they complain about.

I think its your ahole attitude that they don't know how to look things up on their own. You don't give them credit for any intelligence for figuring things out on their own. Maybe if you gave them some respect for their own abilities, and showed it when dealing with them. You might have an easier time. But, then again. By your attitude in your posts. You have no respect for your users. Which says it all.

Typical Microsoft attitude, what can I say.

And like a typical Microsoft tech support. You didn't answer all my points.

Dan

...so it's in my own self interest to steer them in directions that require the least amount of hand-holding. Perhaps you enjoy spending most of your off hours helping people with problems that shouldn't be, or you enjoy charging people vast amounts of money to solve problems that shouldn't be. I do not.

Dan, answer me this. Exactly how many "non technical" users do you steer into Linux for their desktop or laptop use?

I can only say for myself, but what I do is ask what the usages wil be for the system. If they say basic tasks, no gaming, but Internet, Word, etc.. I let them play with a Linux box for a little bit. I will show them some things, and let them decide.
If it is for basic things, and these things are included with the distro, then no problem.
I also mention to them that Windows games/applications and many free downloads will not work, but there are lots and lots of Linux apps that can be installed.
I will give out links freely as well. Most people will unfortunately, opt for Win still, but a few have gone to Linux, and have not complained to me yet.

...what I've been talking about: http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisedesktop/archives/2007/11/why_desktop_lin.html?source=rss

The fact you're linking to a dithering rant by a relative know-nothing that takes the age-old (and obviously absurd) "someone to sue" argument as gospel as "proof" of your claims really says a lot about why your arguments are so full of holes.

Sincerely,
Someone who actually has extensive experience with multiple OS families and supporting end users of all those OS families.

Some estimate that somewhere around 50% of autos drive daily with misinflated and neglected tires, which is responsible for thousands of deadly accidents and millions of gallons of wasted fuel each year.

Now, if the average auto owner can't even deal with something as simple as keeping their tires inflated, how can they be expected to keep a PC properly tuned and secure?

It's written on the tire.

Telling me that most people are too willfully ignorant to look after their computers in no way indicates anything to me about one OS being a better choice than the other. Even the obvious interpretation that people pick MS Windows because they are idiots isn't actually a logically valid deduction when examined.

You're right, the pressure is usually on the tire. And yet it seems that nearly 50% of owner/drivers can't figure that out.

At the same time, you argue that we should expect that these same people should not have any trouble going on the web and figuring out which distro of Linux to choose for their applications, get it downloaded and deployed, etc etc.

Do tell me then: Why do people pick Windoze?

"you argue that we should expect that these same people should not have any trouble going on the web and figuring out which distro of Linux to choose for their applications"

I think you're replying here to something you read somewhere else, if that's what you think I'm arguing. I'm not arguing that willfully ignorant idiots should be expected (where "should" refers to practical likelihoods, not to taking responsibility for onesel) to suddenly start thinking for themselves now and then. I'm arguing that the fact a bunch of people are willfully ignorant idiots does not:

A. preclude large numbers of people switching from MS Windows to other OSes

B. justify their decision

C. make MS Windows any better an option for them than anything else

"Why do people pick Windoze?"

Most of them don't. They mostly get MS Windows handed to them, and don't bother to think about it. Handing them something else would have much the same effect, but with different software replacing MS Windows.

Whoa youngster! 37+ years experience here, Burroughs TC500, Univac OS9, VM/MVS/zOS, Solaris and the rest. I have people running on Linux only boxes, doing everything from surfing the net to photography and that includes an 80 year old and a 67 year old, both newbies to PC's, guys who had to be shown the keyboard keys and what they did. These guys are not developers and they find Linux easy to navigate, once it's set up for them, it is just the same as if they had bought a Windows PC or a Mac.
Rants that are a travesty of a situation is the trait of a closed mind. There are vast numbers of Linux users who don't even know they are using Linux or don't care, it does the business.
Whereas I can't comment on OSX, I'm more than qualified to comment on Linux and if you are going by published numbers from analysts that suggest Mac installations outnumber Linux, they are totally bogus, they are using a straight edge to measure the distance you have to travel between two points on the map, not allowing for bends in the road or hills you have to go up and down.
You buy a Mac or a Windows PC, so the OS instances can be counted, buy one copy of Linux and it can go on thousands of boxes. I have one copy of openSUSE 10.3 donated by Novell which I won't be installing on anything, so just guess how many Linux instances I am running, impossible. Likewise, you can't know how many instances of Linux are running on an IBM mainframe unless someone says and they are probably generated from one DVD.

Hey, if you have the energy and availability to support that, congrats. I have tried to support family members and friends, and frankly, it drove me crazy. Even for OS-independent (or OS irrelevant) items, I found myself tearing my hair out. I barely have enough time to take care of my own PC. That is one of the big objections I have to non-OSX or Windows OS's on a consumer PC: the support just is not there. With a Windows PC, I can at least tell my mom to go to Geek Squad to get a new hard drive installed. With a non-Windows PC, I am suddenly the on-call support person.

I am really the last person who needs to be sold on non-Microsoft or Apple OS's. I use FreeBSD a lot, and push for it at work wherever it is appropriate.

But X is a mess to install (although as you point out, it is fine once it is up and running), and I really do not think that giving someone a setup that only you can support for them does them (or yourself!) any favors.

J.Ja

It's the Windows boxes that prove to be a royal nuisance to the point where I'm very close to the attitude of a friend, who when told by a lady she had a problem with Windows, he simply told her she had a problem and made a quick getaway.
X? Is it still around? I haven't had to do anything with X since the early days of Linux when you had to use a ruler and a calculator to get something approaching a viewable screen.
As I have pointed out, anyone buying a Mac or a Windows PC has it all set up for them, then they buy a new printer or change to cable ISP, that's when I get a call. Latest 3 Windows problems.
1. I had to setup a new PC on a cable modem, then the ethernet port went down and it took me 2 journeys, one to see what the problem was and the other to put on the software needed to enable the cable modem on USB.
2. A Windows XP PC delivered without a restore CD and all the partitions had stuff wiped by the usual nasties you get infecting Windows. I had to make several phone calls and eventually one premium rate call had to be made to Holland -- they could supply a CD for 37 UK Pounds. I haven't had a reply from the user since I left the message.
3. XP on a neighbour's PC was very slow, you know why, so he took it to a shop and had it cleaned up, but all his ADSL settings were gone. I had to download and burn a CD, install the driver and get him back online.

All the above in a couple of weeks. The most I ever get from my Linux users is the very occasional call asking how to do something.
May be I should be charging for doing this stuff, but I don't really want to be bothered with spending several hours cleaning up after Redmond, like the time when Windows update failed and said it would restore everything, but the PC went into a constant reboot cycle. I had to spend between 20:30 and 00:50 wiping , then restoring and setting up everything, got home at 01:30, to bed and up at 05:30 to head off on a 130 mile trip to work.
Linux boxes just work, they get automatic updates and keep working, I have some openSUSE 10.0 boxes out there humming along sweetly and I don't have to upgrade them to 10.3 for the users unless I feel like doing so one day and may be 11.x will be out before I get the urge. When total PC novices tell you they hooked up their digital camera and all they ask is how to burn the pictures on to a CD/DVD, you talk them through drag and drop onto k3b in a single phone call or on skype and you are done - no inserting a CD or rebooting which is something quite perplexing to them. Yes, they used to ask what they had to do with the CD, no more, they understand it's needed only on Windows.
I am sure you could set up a xBSD PC for a newbie and have fewer problems than one with Windows pre-installed and upgrading the PC for them.

This time it's hardware and the PC maintenance bozos. Dead ethernet port and the guy from the PC supplier says it's the cable modem, the cable modem guy came out and said it was OK, but changed it anyway. Now I have to go there again tomorrow and speak to the PC supplier and somehow convince the script reading no-nothings that their hardware is broken. I'm sure they don't have the Windows tools that are available in Linux to do proper analysis. They have been without online use for over 3 weeks and the kids are being marked down at school because they are not able to access online study materials.

It is clear to me that you do not mind doing support for your friends and/or family, and have the time. That is great, and I occassionally fall into that category myself. When you install a non-Windows or OSX OS onto a machine, you *must* be the support plan. Indeed, the nearest authorized Apple shop from me is either in Charlotte (90 minute drive) or Atlanta (4 hour drive), so even the Apple users are out of luck around me!

But if you are a user who does not have a Linux (or BSD, or whatever your choice is) savvy friend or family member, you really *have* to go with whatever you can pay to have supported locally. And that means Windows.

And that is my point. For you, Linux may be easier to support. But if your friends and family members did not have you (or someone else with your knowledge) around, they would need to get their support from Geek Squad or an equivalent, and that means Windows. Or as my uncle says, "whatever you buy, get something with the '800-save-my-butt' number, because I don't have the time being your on-call tech."

J.Ja

"But if you are a user who does not have a Linux (or BSD, or whatever your choice is) savvy friend or family member, you really *have* to go with whatever you can pay to have supported locally. And that means Windows."

There are probably quite a lot more places one can get Unix/Linux support -- even end-user support -- than you realize.

But J. Ja. and I hang our keppies in central South Carolina. The closest place with professional hands-on support is probably Charlotte, 90 to 120 minutes away (depending on traffic, which side of town you start and end on, etc.) I don't see Linux mentioned in any "Help Wanted - IT" classified here. The two LUG meetings I attended had a dozen participants, all from the local university or software developers, none from local computer shops. The local computer users club has a Linux interest group, but it was inactive when I checked earlier this year.

As we bird watchers might say, "Penguin sightings in this area are rare and localized."

I never said that someone at a weather station on the continent of Antarctica could find local commercial Linux support. I just pointed out that there's commercial Unix/Linux support to be had, which contradicts Justin's suggestion that it doesn't exist in any notable distribution at all -- and thus nobody will want to use non-Microsoft OSes.

Please don't take my refutation of an extreme view to be advocacy for the opposite extreme view.

And what's more difficult about Googling the answer to a Linux technical question than to a question of Southeastern United States dialect?

Speaking of changing the subject, why do these discussions return to home users so often?

Microsoft got into homes by first becoming familiar through use at work. Only after years of that is "Windows support" available at mass-production consumer electronics stores. With mixed reviews, let's not forget. So, at its present market share -- if Linux were a single, unified corporate competitor -- its marketing department would not be asking how to be appealing to the users you're talking about, but how to be appealing to workstation admins, and the suits that allocate their budgets. In that context, many of the arguments that Linux is "too difficult" for "average users" turn into major pluses. For example, with limited user accounts, malicious, minimally-informed end-lusers with just enough knowledge to be dangerous don't have the privileges to do anything with their employers' computers, except for their jobs. Exactly as it should be!

[ edit: forgot to run grammer checker before Submitting ]

A keppie is that round cap worn by the Confederates. I tossed it in as a Southern reference since I was referring to South Carolina.

I personally don't always drag home users in to every Linux discussion. I mentioned them in the "Linux (r)evolution topic because I hope the next step is Linux on the home desktop. The original topic here was ease of use of open source programs, and I think ease of use is more of an issue for home and SOHO users. IT professionals should use the best tool for the job (within corporate restrictions), and if it's difficult, suck it up and learn it. Ease of use is also an issue for corporate end users, but unlike home / SOHO users, most corporate users have a free help desk to contact. I'd love to see my end users running an OS that restricted the trouble they could get into, but that's not my call. Among other reasons, customer contracts often mandate the applications we use.

I've been wanting to add the next comment for a while but keep forgetting to. Users: if you don't think an free app is easy to use, don't use it; but you don't have much right to complain about something you didn't pay for. Developers: if you really want someone else to use your app besides just you, find out what changes they think will make it easier and incorporate them. There, that's off my chest.

I've seen Windows support, the guy on the phone tells you to put in some CD or other and if that doesn't sort it out, they are stuck good and proper. Take a case this week, back in September I was told that Windows couldn't go online, I took a ride over and determined the ethernet port was faulty and they should report the fault asking for the motherboard to be replaced. Up turns the PC mechanic or whatever those guys are called, tells the customer that the cable modem was at fault, that was after they handed him a note from me saying it was the ethernet port. They then asked him to call the ISP who said the cable modem was OK. He was yelling down the phone saying he was the "engineer" and it was the cable modem. The Engineer from the ISP came and verified the cable modem was OK, but decided to change it anyway and told the customer it was the PC at fault. Nearly 4 weeks on and the link was still down, kids were not able to complete their class assignments, so were being marked down and the customer was almost bent out of shape with anger. That's where I came in again, they had also bought and installed a new ethernet cable. I called the PC company and told them it was the motherboard, next they asked my credentials - 37+ years in the industry, supporting Amdahl/Fujitsu and IBM mainframes, Sun servers up to E10K and Fujitsu SPARC servers up to PP2500 at levels of UK/Europe/worldwide support. Yesterday they sent a guy with a new motherboard and it was one relieved customer after it was fitted.
This is not uncommon, most Windows users have to turn to other than their paid for support. I get calls from far away in the UK to sort some Windows problem or other out. I have Linux boxes installed as far away as 120 odd miles in London and the only calls I ever get are ones asking how to do this or that - e.g How do I get the pictures from my camera burned onto CD/DVD or the kids have messed up my screen and I can't get the KDE menu, all fixed in a few minutes on the phone.
The heretofore distraught Windows user (well it was the PC really) has an older PC stashed away and I shall bring it home and install Linux on it, network it with the Windows PC with the thought that when Windows croaks and they can't do their print or get online, they have a trusty way out that's immediately available.
The nightmares have all been on Windows, Linux saves me the grief and BTW, I'm busy with little free time, that's why I am very close to refusing to have anything to do with Windows - Microsoft rakes in the cash, so their customers will just have to make out however they can.
There is a whole litany of PC idiots you have to deal with, like when My new Acer laptop read the CD-RW/DVD as a load of garbage characters, the Acer guy told me his supervisor said the Linux writes to the BIOS, so Linux may have corrupted it. Just as I was about to tell the guy that his supervisor was talking out of the wrong orifice, it started working again - It was an intermittent seating problem which I cured by replacing it with a new DVD-RW.
They keep on coming.

I think we can find support personnel of all stripes and colors who stink. After all, it is a high-stress, low-paid job, and the demand outstrips the honest desire to have it (much like teaching in the US!), thus, many, if not most of the people who do it, stink at it. But at the end of the day, with the exception of some extremely densely populated areas, the only way to have *anyone* touch your PC if you cannot do it yourself and do not have a friend or familiy member to help you, is to own a Windows PC.

Palmetto is really right... South Carolina has 4 million people. Not much by US standards, but not a tiny number, either. Not a single place to even *see* a Mac for sale here. And mom 'n pop computer stores have been almost entirely put out of business by the "big boxes", who will only support Windows.

I note that you never really have addressed my point, which is that you are forced to be a Windows user if you want or need professional support. I may also add that many of the situations you describe seem to be hardware problems, not software problems... which are not the OS's fault. Attacking the quality of the support personnel doesn't diminsh the fact of their existence; for every help desk call gone bad, there are dozens, if not hundreds that go well. It's just that we have all had just enough overall contacts with them to have at least one memorable disaster.

J.Ja

"But at the end of the day, with the exception of some extremely densely populated areas, the only way to have *anyone* touch your PC if you cannot do it yourself and do not have a friend or familiy member to help you, is to own a Windows PC."

I live in a town that is about seven miles across at its widest point. There's at least one store here -- a local computer shop -- that currently sells Linux systems and offers support for them. As far as I'm aware, nobody in the local LUG even works there. I guess maybe someone should tell them they're lying, based on what you've said, since their support offer directly contradicts what you just said.

... and where I live, I had to order a kit from Newegg to mount a 3.5" drive in a 5.25" bay, because the mom 'n pops here are so sad, they don't have parts. It's all relative. I should not have used a sweeping, absolute term, but I stand by my arguement. Linux support is extremely difficult to find as a home user, or even a small business user (think of the lawyer's office with 10 PCs, or the CPA with 5 PCs, etc.).

J.Ja

You can't get screws for a hard drive, and you're complaining about local support.

Y'know, I wouldn't bother complaining about the lack of cable service if I couldn't get a television anywhere within eight thousand miles.

You know, it never quite "clicked" for me what you just said. The local support here is atrocious, I was always aware of that. But if they can't install more than an extra drive or two into the typical case, what exactly do they do for "power users". I guess power users either have to upgrade to a bigger case, or replace drives instead of adding them. Heck, you should have seen my quest to get a replacement power LED. It took me hours of driving around to find a shop with an old case they were junking, just to find an LED of the right size.

Sad to say, this is a metropolitan area with about 500,000 people in the MSA, and 100,000 people in the city limits. I used to work in a little computer shack part time in Eutawville (1 gas station, 2 lights), and people would actually drive up to 45 minutes to get there, just to buy a $20 modem, because we were the closest place around. Heck, I can't buy a decent motherboard around here, without being registered as a reseller at the local distribution house.

It is when I think of things I like this, I start to miss living in New Jersey.

J.Ja

go with pclinuxos.
for zero security in a *x system, go with *buntu.
[ no root account, no security ]


I don't use OOo, because 50% of it's functionality requires some sort of jre/jvm [ whatever they are calling it this week ]. They made the document templates etc require java, which is just utter stupidity.
I use K Office.

How would you have made OOo platform-independent without Java?

QT or GTK just spring to mind.

Oh oh, how about mono?

use java for the platform independence, only for the wizards. OOo is written with the QT widget set.

how about using a wizard lnguage that runs on all systems with no conflicts, or conflict manager fameworks [ eclipse ] like perl, python, php, javascript all do?

java is also buuilt around: hardware is cheap develpoment model, which is more honestly put as:
I'm to lazy to write good code / I'm to incompetent to write good code.
anything that requires java is telling me the coders are either lazy or incompetent.

One makes software platform-independent by writing portable code, not by trying to shoehorn it into a JVM. In fact, the JVM, as things currently stand, isn't very bloody "platform independent". Oh, sure, you can get it running on just about any OS, but just getting it running is only the beginning (and is often more trouble than it's worth anyway).

Beyond initial installation, there's also maintenance. What do you do when you need to update it because of security patches? Do you just leave it as-is? Do you remove it and reinstall it from scratch, hoping it doesn't break all your Java-based apps? Do you try a confusing, messy procedure for updating in-place that is prone to failure (which is the case everywhere except MacOS X and MS Windows -- and on MacOS X you're often stuck with an old version of the JVM/JRE because Apple isn't all that interested in porting Java to the Mac and the open source hackers who use MacOS X run into licensing issues when they try to do anything with it)?

Things are likely to get a bit better once the open source licensing of Java finally becomes a practical reality rather than basically just a press release. At that point, Java will become trully cross-platform the same way OpenOffice.org could become truly cross-platform without using any Java: it will be hacked into shape by a bunch of open source hackers who understand how to write portable code, and it will subsequently be included in software management systems for most general purpose OSes without a bunch of nasty legal hoops to jump through imposed by Sun's proprietary licensing schemes (and will thus become easier to use on most Linux distributions and various BSD Unix OSes than it is on MS Windows).

Even then, though, you won't really be getting greater cross-platform portability out of OO.o than you could get if it didn't bind up 50% (roughly) of its functionality in Java. For one thing, it's already cross-platform without the Java stuff because the underlying code is written to be portable across systems. For another, the non-Java stuff isn't likely to disappear from the codebase.

It's amusing and amazing that Java has to be released under an open source license before it achieves the portability for which it is so famed. There's a reason for the "write once, run nowhere" jokes about Java, y'know.

1. Wikipedia isn't only for Linux nerds. I know tons of college students who have majors other than CS who use the site as a quick way to find references.

2. Text replacement is a feature that should be in any Word processor, regardless if you are a programmer or a data entry clerk. If you type in something many times in a day, you should use a tool that helps deal with this.

3. Being able to do math is nice. Being able to communicate it is also nice. This has nothing to do with being a Linux nerd, as any person who needs to communicate equations will need a strong tool to do this.

4. If you are having a hard time installing Abiword (or anything in Linux), you need to get a new Linux distribution (it isn't 1998 anymore)

I support windows boxes for a living, and let me tell you that outside of a locked down environment, Windows applications are harder to install and support than most common Linux applications.

Well, if you scratch any OS or app you find its ugly under belly. Windows is no exception and MS dev. has made it less necessary to do that with their OS etc. But the problem is when you do get to the "under belly" it is harder "when you get into the basement" to do anything substantial in any Windblows product.

GNU/free software developers are beginning to pick up the hint that they can get main stream (make good money) if they make it easier for people to use Linux.

The biggest issue with Linux is gathering all the nuts and twigs to install a program. The "Windblows" producers discovered this early on and built automatic installers, I have been waiting for Linux geeks to figure this out and catch the hint.

A good sign is the Ubuntu community. Now there is a community. They have started to pull it all together with their latest distro Dapper and without creating a soul stealing monolith designed to enslave the user in the name of excessive, obscene profits. IF the rest of the distros don't get the drift (as the Ubuntu community seems to have) Ubuntu may steal the march on them.

Uh, I think a lot of the SW written for Linux by Linux users are made the way that the writers want it. Or else it would just be making the same thing(s) over and over again. Added functions are great I think, and that is what these developers are after. They see/saw a use for some tools that they did not find elsewhere.

I do see your point and agree that maybe some of these apps can be cleaned up a bit and/or have more time spent on audience targeting. But I surely would not be complaining too much about the offerings that someone made for themselves, and then started sharing it.

Makes patent "Animal Farm" sense. We should have desktops with that sameness and tawdry look we see in Windows. They should have called it Mirrors rather than Windows, it's like it was borrowed from "Haunted House".
Microsoft formats are always changing and are not transparent, so it's not an easy thing to achieve 100% conversion. For one thing, as soon as 100% was nearing achievement, they'd change the format.
There are many people who use Linux, complete novices I have installed Linux for and even had to show them how to use a mouse and a keyboard, they're happy using Linux applications. Also one thing that is always overlooked, the bulk of Linux users are past or even current Windows users.

I have been around for yonks and frankly don't care whose name is stamped on the product... as long as it meets my particular needs.

Our considerations for a target audience must include what that audience needs. Most of our end users just want to be productive. Our job is to facilitate that.

My SO is a very skilled application architect. Guess how he spends his highly paid day? Creating spreadsheets. If you are asking yourself what I am sniffing, you aren't alone.

Fact is that the average end user has maybe 5 minutes of their life that they care to spend developing a solution to their problem of the moment. If the tool that they are required to use is too bulky, too cumbersome, too difficult, they will find someone else to do the work for them and get on to the next thing.

Once upon a time we could develop tools that were as geeky as we were. And as long as we could teach Joe User how to manage them, we could get away with it. Our goal back in the day was to mainstream computing.

Guess what? We did that. And the result is that mainstream users want their needs addressed and without having to put up with a bunch of geeky stuff they don't understand.

Let those of us who understand pivot tables and binary do our thing. But create software to support the end user in a way that user can understand.

The line to walk is fine indeed. But I think that the geeks among us are capable of the challenge.

The computer was created to work for me, not me for it. If I have to jump through hoops, I'm working for it. Wrong answer. I will move on to something else that works for me.

Dan

Do you find, in general, that Windows or Linux has you working for the computer more? On the balance, I prefer the up-front requirement of learning the command-line over the instability, insecurity and maintenance hassles of Windows.

Sorry if the question seemed confrontational. I'm just curious, because I agree with the premise, but you only imply an answer to the question at hand. Thanks.

...don't have the time, inclination, or ability to master a command-line. As unstable and insecure as Windoze is, the fact remains that absolutely anybody with $400 to spend can go to their local big-box store, buy a Windoze-based PC, plug it in along with a wide assortment of acessories and be up and running. The same cannot be said of any other operating system.

"the fact remains that absolutely anybody with $400 to spend can go to their local big-box store, buy a Windoze-based PC, plug it in along with a wide assortment of acessories and be up and running"

. . . for a few weeks, or even months. Then, the nightmare begins. To maintain a secured and stabilized MS Windows system, you have to know (and do) a hell of a lot more than to achieve equivalent results with a Linux or BSD Unix system. Couple that with the fact that once you know enough to maintain a Linux or BSD Unix system you'll realize that you know enough to get a lot more done.

The problem here isn't one of not needing to know as much about MS Windows to make it useful. You need to know more to keep it useful, after all. The problem is one of marketing: it's very difficult to sell someone on something based on long-term benefits. Everybody just wants the "plug and pray" behavior, and doesn't give two craps about the fact that his or her computing life will become hell in a couple months -- or, at least, doesn't care until it actually happens.

Of course it takes a certifiable IT background to keep a Windoze-based PC healthy in the long run. Believe me, I'd never dispute that as my porch is constantly littered with computers left by desperate friends & relatives.

The point is that anyone can walk out of a store and get it running. Heck, almost any boob can set up a Windoze server as well. (just keep clicking "next" whenever the wizard asks anything) The same cannot be said of any Linux distro. Period. It's a non-starter. (litterally) Hence; As Windoze will continue to sell to the mainstream, Linux will remain to appeal only to the true geek. (Unless it comes in a Tivo box or like)

Oh, and what do most people with Windoze PCs do when their PCs become too bogged down due to viruses, spyware, or "registry rot" in about 18 months? Like with most modern consumer electronics, they don't bother to fix it, but go out to buy a new one. It's great for Microsoft and the PC retailers.

"Heck, almost any boob can set up a Windoze server as well. (just keep clicking "next" whenever the wizard asks anything) The same cannot be said of any Linux distro."

Actually, exactly that behavior will often get a plain vanilla Debian system running these days. You just have to enter a username and choose a couple of passwords, basically. Otherwise, accept defaults and you'll get a system configured for the common desktop case.

You won't get an ideal configuration -- but it'll be less painful in the long run than the far-from-ideal configuration of a default MS Windows install.

There are other Linux distributions that behave similarly during install, as well as BSD Unix installers such as PC-BSD.

I have heard that a lot about 2ghz systems. Sometimes it is a virus, sometimes it is malware, but more often than not it is from them changing internet providers that all provide a security suite that they INSIST (to the people that don't know better) that they HAVE to install it. They forget to tell the user to uninstall the old AV from the previous provider, and now it hangs.

That, or they made the serious mistake of loading the Mcrappy suite on. On a clean XP system with an AV and firewall running, I expect it to take 190 to 220 MB of ram to boot. Mcrappy bumps that closer to 450 MB JUST TO TURN IT ON!

I have "fixed" many a system just by uninstalling that and putting AVG and ZoneAlarm on and the people were begging me to take more money they were so happy.

...that while a relative novice might be able to get a Linux distro up and running, they won't be able to do much with it beyond that. There's very little in the way of accessories at your local big box store that you can plug into it and expect to work without a certain level of expertise.

http://www.google.com/search?q=linux+hcl&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

How would a Linux user ever know what hardware will be compatible with their distribution? I just don't know where to look for that information.

A Windoze user does not need to spend hours on a Google search to determine if all the stuff they'd like to work with their new PC is compatible with it. They just go to Best Buy and a helpful salesperson will be happy to fill their basket with everything they need, no question asked.

A Windows user can, just as you say, expend less time initially by traveling to the nearest Big Box retailer and purchasing a computer that will plug in and work, immediately.

For a while.

If they pay extra for anti-virus, anti-spyware and firewall programs. Or, if they never connect to the Internet, but that would defeat the primary (often, the only) purpose of the machine, so that's out of the general discussion. Add cost of third party security programs, and time tending to them to your calculations.

Oh, and what do most people with Windoze PCs do when their PCs become too bogged down due to viruses, spyware, or "registry rot" in about 18 months? Like with most modern consumer electronics, they don't bother to fix it, but go out to buy a new one.

LOL, so true! In the meantime, we encounter progressively more of the mysterious malfunctions which cannot be diagnosed without hours of research on Google -- do you see where I'm taking this yet? There is an equal or greater cost of time, just paid gradually. Like a credit card bill...

By my estimate, the time wasted re-booting Windows, installing & re-installing third party software is more than the time required to achieve equal or greater productivity using Linux. The difference is not necessarily in the amount of time spent, but in how time is spent. I prefer to exercise mine on something within my control, on a kernel and community that isn't ashamed to show me how it does what it does.

If you replace the machines running it quickly enough, perhaps Windows does save time -- in the extremely short term. But then, I'm the kind of person who counts the money I spend in terms of the time I spent laboring to earn it, so that really doesn't stick, either.

If I did prove your point, I also proved that it's true only in such a limited time interval that I also proved it inconsequential.

"while a relative novice might be able to get a Linux distro up and running, they won't be able to do much with it beyond that."

Oh, I get it now. You're kidding. I mean, obviously, you're just kidding, JohnMcGrew -- because nobody can really believe that something like clicking on the OpenOffice.org or Mozilla Firefox icon will prove to be such a tremendous challenge that the average end user won't be able to handle it. I guess maybe the fact that Firefox doesn't use a big blue E for its icon could be confusing at first, but I'm pretty sure that won't hold anyone back for long.

The technical superiority of Linux doesn't matter; will never matter if people never buy it. The average computer user has no way of understanding the back-end benefits. They just want to walk into the story, buy their computer and their accessories, go home, and plug it all in. And until the Linux community figures that out, it will remain as a niche share for the desktop.

Until there is a more consisten user experience and device drivers that are both avalilable and work consistently, Microsoft will rule this market. Microsoft (which is not a technology company, but a marketing company) understands that.

"A Windows user can ... expend less time initially by traveling to the nearest Big Box retailer and purchasing a computer ... Add cost of third party security programs, and time tending to them to your calculations. ...when their PCs become too bogged down ... they don't bother to fix it, but go out to buy a new one. ...There is an equal or greater cost of time, just paid gradually. By my estimate, the time wasted re-booting Windows, installing & re-installing third party software is more than the time required to achieve equal or greater productivity using Linux. The difference is not necessarily in the amount of time spent, but in how time is spent."

Some people don't mind spending money as much as they mind spending time. I could take the time to learn to maintain my car, invest in the necessary tools, but I don't. I drop it off at the shop to have the oil changed, tires rotated, brakes, uh, whatever it is they do to the brakes, because I would prefer to pay someone else to do it while I use my time for other things.

As you note, you're estimating. You're also assuming every Windows user has problems. And if every Windows user just replaces his machine when he has trouble, what's keeping Geek Squad and the others in business?

"I prefer to exercise mine on something within my control, on a kernel and community that isn't ashamed to show me how it does what it does."

That's you. I could get a car with a standard transmission if I wanted that level of control in my car, but I don't. I'd rather have my right-hand free to eat Bacon Triple-Cheese Cardiac Arrest Burgers with Extra Lard. I don't care who put the automatic transmission together or how they did it, since I'm never going to touch it anyway. Joe Keyboard doesn't care about having the source code; he can't read it and isn't interested in learning how to changing it.

JohnMcGrew:

"The technical superiority of Linux doesn't matter; will never matter if people never buy it."

"They just want to [. . .] buy their computer and their accessories, go home, and plug it all in."

I think you are the one missing a point here. My point is that you can do that with a Linux-based system, too.

If you step just one more level up that stepladder of computer user skill, to the point where you find someone that doesn't have to buy a whole new computer after six months because he's able to put an MS Windows installation CD in the CD tray and click "OK" a lot, you'll find that there's still very little difference between the two in terms of ease of getting started.

Your previous comment, titled "The problem is...", in which you said "while a relative novice might be able to get a Linux distro up and running, they won't be able to do much with it beyond that," tries to make a point about what happens after the system is installed, which directly contradicts this comment of yours about how your only point was that people want to be able to just buy everything preconfigured so they don't have to do anything but plug it in and hit the power switch. You made a very clear argument to the effect that even when a user gets a system set up he or she is unlikely to be able to do anything.

My last post in this subthread addressed that directly, where I pointed out that clicking on the OO.o icon is no more difficult in a KDE GUI than in an Explorer GUI.

. . . so please, kindly stop recasting the discussion in terms completely unrelated to the previous progression of the discussion, effectively lying about what was previously said. Address the matter at hand, even if only by saying "I don't have an answer to that, but perhaps you'd like to provide an answer to this other concern of mine."


"Until there is a more consisten user experience and device drivers that are both avalilable and work consistently, Microsoft will rule this market. Microsoft (which is not a technology company, but a marketing company) understands that."

If that's your point, perhaps you could enlighten us all about the reasoning behind your previous statements to the effect that non-Microsoft OSes are unusable without a great deal of expertise -- which is a technical matter, and not a marketing matter at all.


Palmetto:

"Some people don't mind spending money as much as they mind spending time."

It is for people like this that retailers like Dell, Emperor Linux, and Wal-Mart provide a means of acquiring a computer with a Linux-based OS already installed and configured.


"I could take the time to learn to maintain my car, invest in the necessary tools, but I don't. I drop it off at the shop to have the oil changed, tires rotated, brakes, uh, whatever it is they do to the brakes, because I would prefer to pay someone else to do it while I use my time for other things."

On the other hand, one would hope you occasionally check the oil level and tire pressure -- and, of course, the gas gauge.


"You're also assuming every Windows user has problems."

Every MS Windows user connected to the Internet that doesn't know enough about the system to perform some maintenance tasks does have problems, I believe. Oh, sure, all it takes is a single exception to disprove the rule -- but A) I don't think you'll find such an exception and B) even if you do, that just forces one to change the rule to "every MS Windows user except this one, singular, incredibly unlikely example right here".


"I could get a car with a standard transmission if I wanted that level of control in my car, but I don't."

I think you misunderstood absolutely's point. He didn't say he wanted to hack kernel code. He said he preferred to spend his time on something that he could control if he wanted to (having the option is not the same as using the option), and on something whose purveyor is not ashamed of its internal workings.

The automatic transmission is a marvel of modern technology. Really. All those whirring rings of spiral-cogged metal are amazing, especially when one considers how they have to interact with each other in practice. The technology is very publicly understood, however, and assuming the ability to fabricate the material components one could conceivably build one in one's back yard, given the proper skills and knolwedge. This is knowledge that can be gained if you wish.

Microsoft Windows, however, is not something you're going to be able to build from components at home. It's just beyond the ken of mortal men. It is the result of more than a decade of layered cruft at this point, and the marvel of its operation is unlike that of the automatic transmission -- not because it's amazing the way it works, but because it's amazing the damned mess works at all. Furthermore, Microsoft is "ashamed" (I think that's a much more literally accurate term than most people would think at first glance, especially since it took me a few minutes of thought to realize it was applicable as more than merely a jab at the vendor) to let us see the innards.

Any time someone is afraid to let you see how something works, regardless of whether you actually want to know how it works, that's a pretty bad sign. You may want to rethink entrusting it with anything important -- like your finances, that novel you're writing for NaNoWriMo this year, or even email communications.


"Joe Keyboard doesn't care about having the source code; he can't read it and isn't interested in learning how to changing it."

The availability of source code has a causal relationship to a lot more than simply one's personal ability to study and/or modify it. The availability of source code in open source projects provides significant benefits that do not require one's actual use of the source code for one to enjoy. Saying that the lack of skill and motivation for reading source code makes the availability of source code useless is like suggesting that all the world's problems could be solved by taking money from rich people and giving it to poor people: it is short-sighted and absurdly simplistic, ignoring matters like what effect such redistribution of wealth has on things like the productivity of people who expect some reward for their efforts (otherwise there's no motivation for the effort in the first place) or, even in the case of the truly altruistic, the simple ability to apply that wealth to the task of pursuing those altruistic ends.

Communism fails in practice to encourage the overall improvement of the living standards of a society for many of the same reasons that closed source software development models fail in practice to encourage advancement of software technology available in a society where such practices dominate.

You don't have to be a business owner to benefit from the positive effects of a free market economy just as you don't have to be a gun owner to benefit from the positive effects of shall-issue CCW laws, you don't have to be a reporter to benefit from the positive effects of the First Amendment to the US Consitution, you don't have to be a lawyer to benefit from the positive effects of the US justice system's assumption of innocence, and you don't have to be a programmer to benefit from the positive effects of the availability of source code.

"Saying that the lack of skill and motivation for reading source code makes the availability of source code useless ..."

I didn't say it was useless, I said the home user doesn't care. I can not care about cell phones (and don't) but still realize others find them useful and beneficial. I doubt the home user has that level of recognition, or knows what "open source" means.

Great idea for maximum message depth replies, by the way. Now, back to our disagreement:

As you note, you're estimating. You're also assuming every Windows user has problems. And if every Windows user just replaces his machine when he has trouble, what's keeping Geek Squad and the others in business?

First, it is not necessary to assume that every Windows user has problems, when there are plenty of data available providing the clear picture that Windows users disproportionately experience certain problems. Second, the 18 month replacement interval was not my assumption, but one that I referenced in a counterargument, and whose relevance I disputed. Using an assumption I have not made to undermine my position is dishonest or sloppy. Take your pick.

You're right, it was JohnMcGrew who preached that users replace their machines every year and half. In my defense, I read your quotation of him in "View/Print All" mode and couldn't tell it was italicized.

You're saying a lot of things that are true, and which serve to define your perspective, which is not mine. You're welcome to it. I am not arguing that anybody *needs* to use a Microsoft competitor who doesn't perceive the advantages of it. I only explain my own choice, as the topic arises. Yours is not the point, it's merely your perspective.

You all continue to miss the point The technical superiority of Linux doesn't matter; will never matter if people never buy it. The average computer user has no way of understanding the back-end benefits. They just want to walk into the story, buy their computer and their accessories, go home, and plug it all in. And until the Linux community figures that out, it will remain as a niche share for the desktop.

Microsoft entered the home market via the home users' employer. Linux can do the same, and home users will merely tend to prefer the same distro their employer uses, on their *first* home Linux computer.

Until there is a more consisten user experience and device drivers that are both avalilable and work consistently, Microsoft will rule this market.

I include "continuous uptime" in my own calculations of "consistent user experience", and I consider system slowdowns for virus scans and viruses, and operating system re-installs due to virus infection and blue screen errors all as "inconsistent user experience events". Yes, I fully understand what you're trying to describe with the term "consistent user experience". You're talking about a GUI that is as uniform from one PC to the next as one McDonald's hamburger to the next. You're talking about the "high-tech" industry in the terms that have defined the fast food industry. It's hilarious that some of you seem to wonder why some of us are unimpressed by that. The uniformity of desktops is not a high enough priority, to me, to tolerate the multitude of associated trade-offs.

Microsoft (which is not a technology company, but a marketing company) understands that.

So do I.

Of course! The way you referenced my post by number made clear immediately that you were using Print/View All. I forgot what effect that would have on the formatting that made the attribution clear. I should use "username: quotation" in the future.

apotheon, to JohnMcGrew: If you step just one more level up that stepladder of computer user skill, to the point where you find someone that doesn't have to buy a whole new computer after six months because he's able to put an MS Windows installation CD in the CD tray and click "OK" a lot, you'll find that there's still very little difference between the two in terms of ease of getting started.

That is exactly the point where I saw the costs in time of maintaining a Windows vs. a Linux desktop for personal & academic use approaching parity. Having already researched the comparative stability and security of Linux, I had all the information I need to choose my operating system and licensing model.

I have occasionally had to switch on the old Windows box for academic work, which can be required in Microsoft file formats, or via connections that use ActiveX (!), a tirade I don't have time to pursue right now. But where rules permit me a choice, it's Linux all the way. For the general case, I think it's fair to call the first re-format/re-install of Windows the point of increasing marginal return of switching to Linux, for home users. They won't all use all their commodity peripherals easily at first, but the "consistency of user experience", in the technical not marketing terms I suggested above, was better for me within 2 years. You only have to learn, for example, CUPS and xorg/x11 once. With proprietary software there is a lot more proprietary/thowaway learning. I count that as a "cost". Call me crazy.

palmetto: "I didn't say it was useless, I said the home user doesn't care."

I'm afraid I don't get your point, then. Why does it matter in terms of the technical benefits of choosing one OS over another whether the end user cares about availability of source code, or of choosing one nation of residence over another whether the common US citizen cares about the legal protections provided via the power of the courts to issue a Writ of Habeas Corpus, or of supporting one potential head of government over another whether some oppressed and destitute third-world victim of totalitarian socialism has the ability to reason through the economic benefits of a liberal (in the denotative, non-political sense of the term) free market system? How do any of these things in any way affect the viability of the OS/nation/leader in question as an improvement in the conditions of that individual who "doesn't care" about very relevant details?

I don't understand what your statement is meant to assert or refute. The (probably willful) ignorance of someone that doesn't understand the benefits he or she can accrue from choosing differently in no way alters whether the alternative option is a good one that can reasonably be employed, that will not make life more difficult or unpleasantly complex.


absolutely: "Call me crazy."

Why? I agree, and find your statement perfectly reasonable.

I'm not sure how I can make my opinion clearer. I thought the cell phone analogy was good, but apparently not.

a: "The availability of source code has a causal relationship to a lot more than simply one's personal ability to study and/or modify it. The availability of source code in open source projects provides significant benefits that do not require one's actual use of the source code for one to enjoy."

Agreed. But the average home user doesn't know that, or care about it. He just wants his appliance to work in the fashion he nebulously defines as "easy to use".

abs: "I prefer to exercise mine on something within my control, on a kernel and community that isn't ashamed to show me how it does what it does."

P: "Joe Keyboard doesn't care about having the source code; he can't read it and isn't interested in learning how to changing it."

apo: "Saying that the lack of skill and motivation for reading source code makes the availability of source code useless is like ..."

I didn't way it was 'useless'. I'm trying to say it is my opinion the average user isn't interested in the availability of the source code for any application, whether he runs the app or not. As an example from a strictly personal perspective, I'm aware it's possible to load different GUIs onto a Linux installation (or skins onto a Windows desktop), but since I'll never exercise that ability I don't care if it disappeared tomorrow.

"Why does it matter in terms of the technical benefits of choosing one OS over another whether the end user cares about availability of source code..."

It doesn't matter in terms of the technical benefits of the OS. But to an end user choosing an OS, the availability of the source code is not going to affect the choice one way or the other. Whether it's due to a lack of understanding the overall strategic benefits, or a lack of usefulness to him personally, he simply doesn't care.

"But the average home user doesn't know that, or care about it. He just wants his appliance to work in the fashion he nebulously defines as 'easy to use'."

Fine. So . . . what does that prove, exactly?


"I'm trying to say it is my opinion the average user isn't interested in the availability of the source code for any application, whether he runs the app or not."

. . . which in no way changes the fact that the benefit to the end user still exists, regardless of that end user's (willful) ignorance.


"I'm aware it's possible to load different GUIs onto a Linux installation (or skins onto a Windows desktop), but since I'll never exercise that ability I don't care if it disappeared tomorrow."

1. I think you may be making statements about an uncertain future that may prove false in the long run.

2. Even if I'm wrong about #1, you're still benefiting from the existence and continued development of alternative GUI environments. You may not consciously care about the fact of additional available GUI options now, but if they all disappeared you'd certainly care a lot about some of the consequences of that unfortunate vanishment.

3. Caring, or not, in no way changes the importance of what you do or don't care about.


"But to an end user choosing an OS, the availability of the source code is not going to affect the choice one way or the other."

Maybe it won't affect it directly -- but it does affect it indirectly, because without the availability of source code a lot of the characteristics of a given OS that prompt someone to choose it over another are consequences (direct or indirect) of the availability of source code. For instance, a significant chunk of the reason for the increased security characteristics of free Unix-like OSes is the open source licensing under which they are distributed and the developer communities that have grown up around them. Eliminate the availability of source code, and you've eliminated some of that security -- and thus eliminated some of the reason Joe Sixpack the Corporate IT Stooge may have chosen a non-Microsoft OS in the first place.

Thus, he may not care about the availability of the source per se, but he sure as sh*t cares about the benefits he can get from the availability of source -- even if he's not aware that's where he gets those benefits.

they just spend it on the phone with Tech Support, be it Dell, or Geek Squad, or whatever. Ability & inclination are personal matters for individuals to decide, but if you really believe that "most users today" don't have them, I think Microsoft pays you a lot of money.

As unstable and insecure as Windoze is, the fact remains that absolutely anybody with $400 to spend can go to their local big-box store, buy a Windoze-based PC, plug it in along with a wide assortment of acessories and be up and running.

For how many days, before the first major malfunction?

The same cannot be said of any other operating system.

That's true.

Since it's not likely that "Joe User" is going to find a way to get the multifunction printer, digital camera, iPod, and video camera to work with a Linux machine, he's never going to experience the alternative.

"Since it's not likely that "Joe User" is going to find a way to get the multifunction printer, digital camera, iPod, and video camera to work with a Linux machine"

I don't see why not.