And yet it still has a tiny percentage of the market share. It's the fringe word that average people hear but don't really understand. What is Linux? What does it do? Why should I ever care about it?
Neal Stephenson (author of famous books Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon among others) put it best in this hilarious and well written story.
"The people who live there are making tanks (Linux). These are not old-fashioned, cast-iron Soviet tanks; these are more like the M1 tanks of the U.S. Army, made of space-age materials and jammed with sophisticated technology ... But they are better than Army tanks. They've been modified in such a way that they never, ever break down, are light and maneuverable enough to use on ordinary streets, and use no more fuel than a subcompact car... Anyone who wants can simply climb into one and drive it away for free."
The main reason why people aren't lining up to pick up their free tanks is because there just isn't enough software out for it. It's a vicious circle. You can't find such common consumer products such as Photoshop or Microsoft Office on Linux because there aren't enough Linux users. There aren't enough Linux users because there aren't enough products out for them. See the problem?
This article does a good job summarizing the problems facing Linux right now, and why we still aren't likely to see it become common any day soon. I have the same reservations as the ones listed by McAllister. I'd have to download and install it myself, praying that I can find compatible drivers for all my hardware. I would have to search for, learn and install alternates to all my software. I couldn't play games (WINE is a good fill in but not fast enough for competitive gaming without a decked out system) or run Internet Explorer if I absolutely had to go to a non-Firefox friendly site.
This is all coming from someone who is not only technically inclined but already fluent in Unix. I shudder to think of how a "normal" person would approach a monstrous task like installing a Linux distro.
"Hey, it's just like installing Windows... hit a few 'next buttons' and you're nearly done. By the way, you might need to compile some of the packages yourself, and maybe write drivers for your old sound card..."
P.S. I would underline those book titles if I could figure out how :(
Posts
While most Windows specific apps don't run on Linux, there are a lot of Linux versions that do the same thing (and they're free!) Unless you're really professionally editing images, Gimp is a fine substitute for Photoshop. As for MS Office, OpenOffice is a great substitute that allows you to work with pretty much all of MS Office's file formats.
ReplyDeleteThere have only been a handful of issues I've run into since I've switched to it as my primary OS. First, I did run into an issue when trying to get my 30" inch monitor and 17" monitor to play nicely together with a specific video card. Thankfully, we had an extra nVidia card laying around and everything worked out fine when I switched to that. The second issue which I haven't been able to overcome is finding something that lets me manage my iPhone on Linux. For this, I still have a separate machine that runs Windows so I can run iTunes :) To be honest though, I don't even really need a separate computer. With VirtualBox, you can install and run Windows on your Linux machine (and then install iTunes on that VM.)
As far as the challenges of installing and using Linux go, Ubuntu is a great distribution for first-time users. The installation is super easy and the interface is really user-friendly (and yes, it's what I use :))
First of all, I'm pleased to see you reading my blog, and appreciate comments :)
ReplyDeleteSecond, I think an important thing to remember is that most people are "casual" computer users. They don't want to spend any more than a tiny bit more effort to do their daily business- check email, write papers, etc.
These people are willing to spend hundreds of dollars to NOT have to change software. You listed Gimp and OpenOffice as new software they'd have to pick up, and OO is actually a whole suite of new software. Yes, much of it is similar, but the interfaces aren't perfectly identical. You would need to learn that in OO they put X option under this menu instead of Y option under MS Office.
Also, your second paragraph is well beyond the effort + ability of most people. How many random people on the street are aware that they can swap video cards? How many of them are ABLE to do so? How many of them have a spare video card lying around?
Installing a VM is a good point that I really wanted to include in my post, but couldn't find a way to smoothly fit it in. You effectively get Windows on a linux box. However, there's still significant setup there, and a casual user would be overwhelmed by any unfamiliar errors that may crop up.
People are afraid of change and hard work, and it's sad but understandable. Why should they switch to an unknown (albeit significantly cheaper) alternative if their current setup works?