On Wed, 6 Aug 2003, Keith Watson wrote:
Going back to where this all started, I wonder if we aren't all talking out of our collective backsides. We all seem to be implicitly accepting that GNU/Linux is in some way inferior to Windows WRT the average non-technical user.
That's a bit harsh, but not without some justification. My experience of Linux so far has been almost all for server use, but I've just upgraded my laptop hard drive, demoted Windows to 10GB and in the process of putting SuSE 8.2 on the rest. Now it seems that some folks here think SuSE, Mandrake and Red Hat are little beter than Windows, but I just don't have the knowledge to answer the kind of questions Gentoo throws at me on installation.
But even with one of the latest GUI-based distros, things are not as easy as on Windows. I'll use three unrelated examples:
1 Sharing files on Windows is a matter of right-clicking the drive letter and answering a few dumb questions. On Linux you have the choice of NFS or Samba (and probably dozens more) which don't come installed by default. With Samba you have to edit the conf file and then create users, a process I'm still not clear about as there seem to be several commands with overlapping functions. The manual talks about swat, but I've not yet got that to reveal its promised GUI. So far the local Windows machines can see my laptop but not connect to it. Passwords get refused or don't even get asked for. The clients also seem to be hugely confused about whether the machine is publishing its Windows or Linux directories, but I guess that's a Windows cacheing problem.
2 If I plug my Canon Digital IXUS into Windows, up pops a box asking me to choose an installed application. On Linux, I enabled digital camera support (somewhere, can't remember where and can't find it again) but nothing happens when the camera is plugged in. Presumably I've done somethng wrong; maybe I'll find out why before I die of old age.
3 On a recent working trip to China I found free broadband in the hotel room, so to save international mobile charges I signed up with IConnectHere, chosen because all the others had such god-awful sign-up forms that take about a week to complete. Unfortunately, it's Windows only. For Linux all I've found is something called GnomeMeeting (does that work with KDE?). Installation is not simply a matter of running an executable over the Internet, as it is for Windows
I'm not complaining; most Linux stuff is free so who am I to bitch about it? There's heaps of stuff around for Linux, but it wouldn't be fair to say it's as easy to install and use as on Windows. I find myself in a similar position to when I moved from the Mac to DOS/Windows about ten years ago. On the Mac, everything works the same way. The control keys and gestures are the same no matter what the application. (Why? Because Apple published a book and arm-twisted all the developers to follow it.) On Windows they were all different. Over the years style guidelines have gradually been agreed and adhered to, to the point that if you've used a handful of Windows applications you can be pretty sure how to use others.
My point being...
Linux is still at that point where nobody agrees about style guidelines and there are relatively few conventions. Look at Gimp, for example. Fantastic program but the interface is quirky to say the least. Text config files are open and powerful, but wouldn't a little more consistency be nice? Are there any conventions as to where to put Java or OpenOffice so that all users can get at them? I know these are beginner questions but that's what us would-be converts from Windows are; beginners. We're pissed off with unreliable crap that keeps needing reinstalling or patching and we'd like better. But as soon as you go beyond what comes out of the distro box you need a lot of knowledge, and frankly anyone who tells me to read 10,000 lines of C or Perl to find out how something works has little understanding of normal human beings and is reinforcing the popular belief that Linux is only for an exclusive geek club.
-- GT
P.S. If that sounds heated, maybe it's 'cos this is the hottest day in living memory.