Another big issue with Linux IS support. Hardware manufacturers simply are not interested in paying someone to develop drivers to support Linux. Why? Because there are simply not enough people interested in using Linux on their PC. Why? Keep reading. Another problem, is software support. Yeah, you can find ‘thousands’ of software programs in repositories, but the overall quality/compatibility of that software is poor, although there are app’s of higher quality.

Truth is, the whole concept of a ‘FREE’ operating system and software to run on it is fundamentally flawed. You want a truly ‘stable’ distro of Linux? Contact a company like Sun MicroSystems, and tell them what type of hardware your computer has, and then be willing to shell out some big bucks, and they will develop a stable/reliable Linux OS with drivers that support your hardware.

The average everyday PC user just wants to turn on their computer, and USE it. If they want to install a new software app or game, etc, on their computer, they want to put the install CD in the drive or doubleclick an icon, tell the installer what drive/directory to install it too, and whether they want a icon shortcut placed on their desktop or not. You get the picture. They don’t want to fiddle with command lines to activate this device or driver, etc, or to just get an app to run, or to setup their display or sound.

The reason Linux still suffers from the same ole problems year after year, is that the SUPPORT and ORGANIZATION to develop a OS that a everyday PC user wants to use just isn’t there.

Microsoft and Apple have the most popular OS’s in the world for a reason, its because they have an organization of developers working on their OS’s, and a staff whose sole job is to work with hardware/software manufacturers/developers to create drivers/apps for their OS.

The only way Linux will become a viable alternative to Microsoft Windows and Apples OSX, is for a company to support their particular distro, the way Microsoft and Apple support their OS’s.

Until that happens for Linux, it will always be what it is. A pain in the butt for the everyday PC user that just ‘WANTS IT TO WORK’.

To the Linux community at large;

“2008 isn’t going to be the year people move to Linux as a primary non-Windows operating system (in my opinion) because it’s not *quite* ready yet”

God! I’ve been hearing that “not quite ready yet” excuse for the past 12 yrs now. Why is it you can’t get an airtight, efficient, easy, intuitive OS created?
You need to get organized and concentrate/distill your efforts. As it is now you’re a spineless bloated blob.

You guys piss and moan and are filled with bile for MS but you have not brought anything viable to the table. Put up or shut up. DO SOMETHING! Make a better OS. Don’t just keep throwing out free distros that are “not quite ready yet”. Get it together.

Some of you, the introverts, I think just like to keep all things Linux mysterious – obscuring people’s understanding, leaving them baffled or bewildered – over complicating everything surrounding your precious Linux just to stroke your own egos. “Oh I use Linux XX , I’m smarter than you” Either that or you just plain don’t know what you are doing.

If Linux wants to go mainstream / to knock MS off its pedestal you are going to have to stop with your take-it-or-leave-it attitude. Cuz obviously the masses are leaving it. Unfortunately to do so at this late stage in the game you’ll need to change your face, your names for things, the language you use, etc. to match MS. Sorry but that’s what the majority of people are use too. That’s your #1 reality. If you’d of acted sooner this wouldn’t be the case but you chose to dick around these past 18 years. Almost twenty years down the drain. You ought to be ashamed.

You are not going to get anywhere by trying to forcing “the Linux way” on the general joe/jane public or most 30+ y/os. People go with what they know. If you don’t make Linux friendly and knowable people will return to the Windows comfort zone. People today DO NOT HAVE THE TIME to screw around with that kind of BS, the Linux learning curve. That’s a fact of life. Time is money. They also don’t have the attention span to deal with Linux as it stands now. The world’s population is growing older as people live longer. Learning complicated tasks become harder the older you get, you have less patience.

Again, which is why people are not switching to Linux. It’s too UNFAMILIAR. too slow, too complicated, too risky. You claim it is faster, less bloated, easy, but not in my experience..

The Linux goal should be to simplify. Isn’t that what progress is all about…. simplifying difficult tasks, using less to achieve more…. optimizing. distilling, prioritizing……..

Make a Linux that is seamless. I

You guys congratulate each other profusely all the time, yet what have you accomplished in all these 18 years? NOTHING! Not a single viable contender to Microsoft Windows.
Instead you got hundreds of distros all of them lacking.

It’s out of hand, it’s retarded . Your #1 priority should be to make ONE perfect Linux OS to stand up to Microsoft. To break their monopoly. That should be the goal. To bring a real alternative to the world.

“The bewildering choice and the ever increasing number of Linux distributions can be confusing” DAH !!!!!!!!!! And not just confusing but most importantly DISCOURAGING.

Again people don’t have the time, knowledge nor most the inclination to research, learn, install and test run 5, 10, 15……distros to find what works for them. And it’s unacceptable for the Linux community to expect them too.
If Microsoft can do it shouldn’t the Linux community be able to?

I’ve been holding that in for years…..whew

I lost my internet connection twice, I lost my swapspace and I also lost my Windows partition disk icon during Ubuntu upgrades. All that I can fix myself (although it take many hours), but without internet access, I need to use Windows XP to find out how to fix the problems.

I still can’t get my Netgear Wireless USB to work, so I have to take my laptop into the kitchen to use the internet.

Also, my wife boots back into XP as soon as I leave the computer alone, probably because Resume didn’t work after the upgrades.

I tried installing Microsoft Vista on my old Dell notebook, but it ran so slow as to be unusable. Conclusion: Windows Vista is not ready for prime time yet.

I tried installing Ubuntu Linux on my old Dell notebook, and it works well. Able to detect DHCP servers without problem. Free applications and patches have been simple to download and install. Support for my Dell widescreen monitor. Easy to customize the menu bars to my preference. Fonts look fine to me. Conclusion: Ubuntu Linux is ready for primetime. I like this so much, I now plan to purchase a new Dell Ubuntu Linux computer for work.

FUD, FUD, FUD.

There is no evidence that businesses care one bit about who they can sue when deciding which desktop software and OS to deploy. If there was, they’d pay a lot more attention to licensing agreements that remove the right to sue.

There is one way in which lawsuits do matter, though. Most businesses care a lot about being sued; and some have made massive, company wide transitions from Windows to Linux precisely because they got sued or audited by the BSA. Here’s an interview with one person who did exactly that at his company. The threat of being sued for license compliance is far greater with closed source software than with open source software. To date, I’m not aware of any companies that have realized this in advance of actually being sued/audited. If the BSA ramps up enforcement, that could change fast though.

Let’s say Kubuntu–which I confess I haven’t yet looked at–really is the user-friendliest Linux around, and let’s say it CAN compete with Mac… would any enterprises really consider deploying Kubuntu across the entire enterprise, or would the open-source thing scare them off? Businesses want to know whom they can sue when something goes wrong. Firefox has a nice hefty market share, but at least for the time being, it seems that an open-source browser is a lot more palatable to enterprises than an open-source OS.

Vista is tanking in the market right now, but let’s say Microsoft sticks to its guns and stops selling XP on June 30, like they’ve planned. What will all the Vista-hating XP users do? Will they suck it up and start buying Vista? Will they deal with old hardware until Windows 7 comes out? Or will everyone switch over to Mac or Linux–and if so, which one will eat up more of Microsoft’s lost market share?

I have somewhere around a bajillion more questions about this stuff, which I won’t rattle off here, but I blogged about ( http://www.gocsiblog.com/?p=298). My sincere apologies if you perceive that as a shameless plug… I assure you that plug is overflowing with shame.

My wife maximizes windows not for Fitts’s Law reasons — the applications she uses don’t depend on menus — but to reduce visual clutter.