This is the kind of discussion I keep reading around Linux apps
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that convinces me there is still a lot more work needed on Linux.
OK: now how do I launch it?
Can you imagine telling your mother, oh just bring up a console and type sudo blah blah, what the?
I went to try Ubuntu this weekend on my laptop, no wireless driver, no webcam driver, it still needs more work. Sure it's improved a great deal since I tried it approx one year ago, but I'm not going to be switching anytime soon. I think if all the different Linux vendors could agree on one desktop or one distribution things would probably progress quicker, right now, Linux looks like it will suffer from the same problem as UNIX which was some apps ran on some flavours of UNIX and not others, so companies ended up having to support different flavours of UNIX to run different apps from different vendors.
that convinces me there is still a lot more work needed on Linux.
OK: now how do I launch it?
Can you imagine telling your mother, oh just bring up a console and type sudo blah blah, what the?
I went to try Ubuntu this weekend on my laptop, no wireless driver, no webcam driver, it still needs more work. Sure it's improved a great deal since I tried it approx one year ago, but I'm not going to be switching anytime soon. I think if all the different Linux vendors could agree on one desktop or one distribution things would probably progress quicker, right now, Linux looks like it will suffer from the same problem as UNIX which was some apps ran on some flavours of UNIX and not others, so companies ended up having to support different flavours of UNIX to run different apps from different vendors.
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Another example: I once installed an NTFS driver, so that I could read an NTFS partition off a harddisk that I'd attached to the Linux box. Worked great. Only, it was really sensitive to kernel updates, so every time the kernel got updated, I had to reinstall the thing.
It's stuff like this that makes adoption of Linux on the desktop a tough sell.
Posted by Gerco Wolfswinkel At 04:47:32 PM On 09/19/2007 | - Website - |
If you had to install OS X and there was not just one completely controlled hardware platform, I'd bet it would be a PITA. Windows is somewhat better because it has had a near monopoly on the market so every vendor tries to do a bunch of costly work to make sure they can get a seat at the table.
Personally, my old T40 took to Ubuntu with relative ease. If all I wanted was the basics, it sure was easier than the 57 steps ...
(http://thesalmonfarm.org/blog/2007/08/20/57-easy-steps-to-installing-windows/)
... it took to get M$ XP running !
Posted by Glen At 09:45:46 PM On 09/19/2007 | - Website - |
Applications can have sensible install processes that register themselves correctly and create icons in the menus. IBM screwed up their installer so it is suddenly the fault of the OS? You can easily make the same mess on Windows.
As for the drivers, yes, this isn't good enough but it is getting better. The thing most people miss is that driver support tends to be way better on linux than windows. install windows from scratch - see what works and what needs to have drivers downloaded from the vendor. Now try the same with an Ubuntu CD. I am willing to be a beer that Ubuntu supports more stuff than windows (I wouldn't bet much more than a beer on it though!) Vendors of hardware should support Linux by publishing the specifications of their product.
Posted by Alan Bell At 12:22:19 PM On 09/20/2007 | - Website - |
I'm just saying Linux isn't there yet, and I still believe Linux isn't helping themselves with all these variations.
Happy to share a beer though Alan
Posted by Carl Tyler At 01:08:50 PM On 09/20/2007 | - Website - |
Posted by Glen At 07:42:33 PM On 09/21/2007 | - Website - |