Maybe it's time to move to Linux

696

September 19, 2005 05:23 PM

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Quote:Original post by Oxyacetylene
Quote:Original post by brulle
Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
That said, there is no guarantee that Linux will grow to double-digit desktop marketshare, simply because the system is designed around principles that range from opaque to incomprehensible to most users.

What principles would that be? Sounds like you are talking out of you ***, frankly. IMO Unix is well designed compared to Windows.

Well, for example, compare the process of installing new graphics drivers on Linx, and on windows.

Windows:

Log in as administrator
Run "Install driver.exe",
Follow instructions,
Done

Linux:

Edit some obscure file so that your computer boots up in console mode or whatever.

Reboot

Using the command line, navigate your way to the directory where the install program is stored.

If it isn't already, then use chmod to make the install program executable.

Run the install program.

Better hope you remembered the name of a text editor that works from the command line.

Use emacs or vi, or whatever it is to edit a bunch of options in some obscure text files, or at least attempt to, seeing as the command line interface for the program is absolutely awful, and completely unintuitive. Swear a lot.

Eventually after editing all those options, you can attempt to edit the obscure text file that you edited originally, so that your machine boots up in windowed mode.

Reboot.

My mother, who knows nothing about computers, could easily upgrade the graphics drivers on a windows machine. She sure as hell couldn't do the same on Linux.

What about apt-get install nvidia-glx?

Well that's a good start, but after that you need to edit the xorg.conf file as root to use the nvidia driver, and you might have to add modeline info to the monitor section (which isn't trivially easy).

Not to mention the prerequisite knowledge of finding out that there is a nvidia-glx package and that they need to use it.

So, really to get their nvidia drivers the user has to know:
1) How to use the terminal
2) What the root account is, and how to use it.
3) The package they need (they might also need to setup their repositories, too)
4) The structure of the xorg.conf file, where it is, and how to change it.

Compare this to windows, where you generally put in a CD and click Yes and Next a lot.

Anonymous

September 19, 2005 05:54 PM

Personally I use linux as my primary development platform. About the only things my windows partition gets used for is compiling and testing windows ports (i'm working on a cross platform game engine) and playing some games.

The days of linux being difficult to install and set up are long gone. There is a gui for pretty much everything.

If you have some recent hardware (amd64s for example) you'll be able to run a pure (all 64bit binaries) 64 bit operating system to get the best performance out of your system. The performance gains here can be really quite suprising.

If you have a pile of old machines hanging around you can very easily set up a distributed compiling system (apt-get install distcc for you debian types) which will save you lots of time if your compiling big programs. There is even a cluster computing live cd (bootable linux on cd system) if you want to experiment with that.

If you want to give it a try and you arnt sure you want to keep it, just get a live cd off the net (http://www.knopper.net would be a reasonable starting point), whup it in your drive and reboot the system. Comes with all sorts of nice things like an office suit (open office), development tools (gcc etc, kdevelop (a reasonable IDE), gdb (debugging tool)), internet tools and a load of other stuff.

Wuntvor

170

September 20, 2005 06:50 AM

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster

What about apt-get install nvidia-glx?

Or: emerge -av ati-drivers ati-drivers-extra

Telling people that installing software on linux is hard, is telling them you run a distro that is 5 years old.

Yeah, until you realize that unfortunately you are running a kernel version for which ATI hasn't supplied new drivers yet, so either you'd have to apply some obscure patch or switch back to an older kernel. Happy times. :) I admit I was probably very unlucky to try and install it right at that time, and part of that is ATI's fault, too, but things like this have happened several times when I tried to install graphics drivers in linux.

Really, I have tried to install several different distributions on my computer, and oftentimes I did end up with a lot of different problems. None of them could simply be solved by running some GUI program, if there was a solution available, most of the time it required editing some configuration files. Now, for me, that's okay, but if this had not been my computer but rather that of a family-member, I would have despaired trying to tell them what to do.

On Windows, it's mostly just "Click on this, click on that, set that to this" etc., which is pretty easy to do.

I mean, sure, if you get it up and running, Linux does work rather well and it has improved a lot over the years. It is at a point where I would actually consider installing it for someone else. However, I really can't think of many cases where it would be superior for desktop usage, except maybe the amount of applications that come with each distribution (but if Microsoft would be doing that, I am sure they'd be looking forward to a nice lawsuit). That, and Amorok, which I would really love to have on windows. :(

Anonymous

September 20, 2005 08:30 AM

Original post by The Senshi
Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
Quote:Original post by Oxyacetylene
Quote:Original post by brulle
Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
That said, there is no guarantee that Linux will grow to double-digit desktop marketshare, simply because the system is designed around principles that range from opaque to incomprehensible to most users.

...

My mother, who knows nothing about computers, could easily upgrade the graphics drivers on a windows machine. She sure as hell couldn't do the same on Linux.

What about apt-get install nvidia-glx?

Well that's a good start, but after that you need to edit the xorg.conf file as root to use the nvidia driver, and you might have to add modeline info to the monitor section (which isn't trivially easy).

Not to mention the prerequisite knowledge of finding out that there is a nvidia-glx package and that they need to use it.

So, really to get their nvidia drivers the user has to know:
1) How to use the terminal
2) What the root account is, and how to use it.
3) The package they need (they might also need to setup their repositories, too)
4) The structure of the xorg.conf file, where it is, and how to change it.

Compare this to windows, where you generally put in a CD and click Yes and Next a lot.

To enable support for nVidia graphics cards:

1. sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx
2. sudo nvidia-glx-config enable
3. Log out of gnome/kde, hit control-alt-backspace, and log in again.

Ubuntu Wiki

If you know how to use the terminal and how to use the Ubuntu wiki (if you are on Ubuntu), then it is not very hard to install nvidia drivers.

I find this easier than Windows myself because there is not need to load a CD, click next a bunch of times, and then wait for the whole computer to restart (I only have to wait for KDE to reload).

I realize that most Window's users will probably be too afraid to ever touch a command line because they never grew up with a computer and therefore are computer illiterate. The future generations to come grew up with a computer, I can imagine future generations will be computer literate. As Microsoft continues to force upgrades on users and as linux become more 'friendly,' I can only image linux's market share to rise.

Oluseyi

2,123

September 23, 2005 01:49 AM

Quote:Original post by Anonymous Poster
I realize that most Window's users will probably be too afraid to ever touch a command line because they never grew up with a computer and therefore are computer illiterate.

Stop.

Many Windows users "grew up" on DOS. The command line doesn't scare them, they just (correctly) identify it as tedious and overcomplicated for their needs. Please, can you technically inclined persons (read: hopeless nerds) stop extrapolating your experiences as relevant to the larger, general populace? If you condescend toward them by default, then don't aim to speak for them!

CLIs have no affordance. Look the word up. Not that they can't have affordance; see iTerminal.app for Mac OS X to see what a CLI with some level of affordance looks like, then look at Erasmatron 4 to see what logographic prompting could do to make CLIs both more user friendly and learnable. Who'd need manpages if the shell and apps could themselves teach you how to correctly use them? (And, once comfortable, you could progressively switch off the prompting features of the shell and various utilities.)

@brulle:
You didn't take my smiley into consideration (I was using "zealotry" playfully; this is what happens when people get emotionally over-invested). I don't care if you're a zealot. In fact, I don't care for anything you say since you don't know Windows pretty much at all, and you don't accept fundamental Unix tenets (even outlined in books like The Art of Unix Programming and The Unix Philosophy - more here) as valid. Fine. Read Spolsky's essay on biculturalism to see why my positions on usage patterns and the consequent cultural values on Windows and Unix are logical. Or not. At this point, it really doesn't matter.

What you call "false information" is simply stuff you apparently don't know anything about.

Quote:Original post by biscon
Now if they would just ditch that awful hungerian notation lol (personal opinion).

Read this.

No, I'm not on some "Spolsky Revival," but he's one of the few people to come forward and defend Simonyi's Hungarian Notation as originally intended, and clarify that the Petzoldian variant most of us have been abused by is not what was meant. Hungarian Notation - Apps ("applications") Hungarian - was meant to show how the variable/entity was used, not what its superficial type was. This was to help make wrong code look wrong. Unfortunately, Simonyi was Hungarian and used the word "type" where he meant "kind," and the rest, as they say, is history.

In either case, Hungarian Notation has been dead in Microsoft for years, but it's entrenched in the Win32 API, which is probably why you think it still has clout. I think you'll find this very interesting: .NET Framework General Reference : Design Guidelines for Class Library Developers : Naming Guidelines.

Happy hacking.

Will F

1,069

September 23, 2005 04:32 PM

Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
Many Windows users "grew up" on DOS. The command line doesn't scare them, they just (correctly) identify it as tedious and overcomplicated for their needs. Please, can you technically inclined persons (read: hopeless nerds) stop extrapolating your experiences as relevant to the larger, general populace? If you condescend toward them by default, then don't aim to speak for them!

I generally try to not be condescending to them, but this study in the UK has some interesting stats about the general populace. If office workers are having such a hard time with Windows - it tends to reinforce my belief that desktop linux isn't ready for prime time.

Tesl

211

September 24, 2005 12:50 PM

(Sorry for the long windedness of this post, but meh)

I only read to page 2 on this thread before i wanted to post some of my thoughts :)

For the example about how difficult it is installing a graphics card driver on Linux than it is Windows, its only true to an extent. Infact iv got a very good recent example.

I wanted to install a wireless card onto my laptop, which is duel boot with Windows XP Pro and Mandrake Linux. On Linux the installation was not exactly straight forward, most people wouldnt be willing to perform searches for software such as ndiswrapper to get it all working.

On Windows however, upon trying to install the drivers the OS would just freeze. It wouldnt slow to a halt, it just halted completely and stopped accepting any sort of input whatsoever. This happened every time. Eventually i tested the same drivers and card on someone elses laptop, and it installed and worked perfectly.

With Linux, if something doesnt work i can usually find out how to make it work, even if it involves following some obscure set of commands. With Windows, if it doesnt work, then it doesnt give enough information to ever let me solve the problem, and this problem has still not been solved to the day.

There are good reasons to use Linux, and im sure it wont be long before Linux becomes totally dominant in the server market. Im not convinced it can ever dominate the desktop market because of reasons other people have already mentioned, but i think anyone involved in IT should be willing to install it, use it, and understand it.

Its all about selecting the right tool for the job. I do a lot of work on Linux, when XP died on me lately i was fortunate i could easily back up all this data (it can read NTFS btw) and upload it in a .tar.gz so i could download it later.

For Games, theres no reason as of yet to not stick with Windows. Maybe in the future there will be though, so it wont do you any harm writing some cross platform applications, and using APIs such as OpenGL as opposed to DirectX :)

"Leave it to the computer programmers to shorten the "Year 2000 Millennium Bug" to "Y2K." Isn't that what caused this problem in the first place?"

Daniel Miller

218

September 24, 2005 05:22 PM

<3 Oluseyi

That was a nice post, as always.

brulle

100

October 03, 2005 09:05 AM

Quote:Original post by Oluseyi
You didn't take my smiley into consideration (I was using "zealotry" playfully; this is what happens when people get emotionally over-invested). I don't care if you're a zealot.

Ok, you don't care but i'll say something anyway. I am emotionally invested because Windows annoys me to a larger extent than any other product i have come across and Microsoft annoys me to a larger extent than any company I have had to deal with.

Quote:In fact, I don't care for anything you say since you don't know Windows pretty much at all,

Not entirely true. I used windows long before any Unix-like system, and have been working as a Windows (NT 4.0 -- it was several years ago) administrator for about 3 years so, although I am not an MSCE or anything, I do think that I have a pretty good picture of how Windows works. (By the way, a t m I use Windows only.) And I have no more Unix than Windows experience, so maybe you just think I don't know anything about operation systems.

Since people around me, however, have considered me to be above average knowledgeable about Windows I have also, throughout the years, been asked to fix numerous Windows related problems for friends and colleagues. What I have learned from seeing people use their computers just makes me think Windows is neither a well designed operating system nor is it a particularly user friendly one. And i certainly do not think it is in any way transparent to its users. Despite what any theories about software development may say.

Quote:... and you don't accept fundamental Unix tenets ...

I do know that Unix is originally built this way, and I look upon it as a smart way of doing things. As for leaky abstractions, yes it may be a problem to some extent, but abstractions are basically good and these problems of leakage can be overcome (they mostly have been -- compare todays distributions with those from five years ago). Gnome and KDE, however, are not built just as afterthoughts around command line utilities. In most cases they complement them. It seems you are generalizing a bit too much here.

What about the Windows lack of architechture? Todays Windows has a lot of baggage from DOS and older Windows (as a result of merging home and business lines into one) that just makes it a living hell to manage. The ever changing file hirearchy for example (evolved from DOS and NT merged to 2000 and now to change again in Vista) that makes no sense at all and only leads to insecurity and quickly destabilised and slowed down installations of the OS?

Or take the necessary service packs and hotfixes that break applications and even Windows itself. Even if a user could install Windows, could she harden it properly so it does not get infected? Can she use it for more than 6 months without it getting slow and unstable or beeing compromised?

Do you really think Windows is transparent to users? If so, that would certainly contradict my experience, and I would think you must be living in a dream world, Oluseyi.

paulecoyote

1,065

October 03, 2005 09:44 AM

Okay it comes down to this, end user experience. Instead of looking at the operating systems as something you would use, with all your developer voodoo, look at it from another point of view... say... your grandmothers.

Mac OS > Aimed at arty types whom don't care how things work or what things do, as long as it does what it's supposed to and looks damn fine while doing it. Someone could go buy a Mac, open up the box, plug it in and it would just work with whatever comes with. Your gran could use a Mac. Her cat could probably use a Mac. Problems only arise when you start installing things that didn't come straight from Apple, or try and start doing real advanced stuff - that your gran would never want to be bothered with anyway.

*nix > Aimed at command line junkies, people whom are used to the "old" ways of doing things and don't mind spending as much time setting up and maintaining their operating system as they do using it. Desktop not working? No problem, I'll just su -, hand edit a few text files, restart a few daemons and oh look, it works great. Your gran probably wouldn't turn on a *nix box on without your supervision. She accidentally turned off the power without shutting down once and it really told her off! Red writing, warnings about possible loss of stuff... then it couldn't mount something... wow this stuff is dangerous!

Windows > Aimed at anyone, and the suites favourite choice. Configurability and flexibility at the expense of an always seamless experience... but Administration of policies across machines and domains are flexible and accessible via GUI. So many different hardware configurations that care must be taken... but there's almost always a GUI way of doing things.
If your gran brought a Dell or something preconfigured, after getting used to 2 mouse buttons instead of just the one on the Mac she would be alright with it. It updates itself, little speech bubbles in that system tray tells her that well, things are updated and everything is fine. Her friend Mavis has one of these Windows things too, seems like she can ask anyone about advice to do things on her Windows machine.

I run a Gentoo server, and now that was a steep learning curve installing the thing... but worth it for emerge. I've tried other distros... Redhat gave me problems about uninstalling something because something had to be installed first (!) that couldn't be installed because something was blocking it... WHATEVER. Mandrake worked a few times then just... stopped. Every time I want to do something with the Gentoo box it seems to require more time setting up everything so it can do what I want it too rather then actually performing the task I need it too.

I don't want to have to think so hard about everything I do and be punished so severely on a mistake. That’s where Windows has Linux... almost everything is intuitive, consolidated, accessible via a Wizard and just plain non-fatal.

And the tools... Visual Studio with it's debugger, form designer, graphical project files and a host of useful gadgets. I would happily swap to Linux, but so far my experience is def having to spend more time on configuration rather then doing. Like messing with make files rather then just coding. I'm sure if I spent enough time I might even grow to prefer Linux... but most of the time I have something far more enjoyable or pressing to spend my time on.

Anything posted is personal opinion which does not in anyway reflect or represent my employer. Any code and opinion is expressed “as is” and used at your own risk – it does not constitute a legal relationship of any kind.

Maybe it's time to move to Linux

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Maybe it's time to move to Linux

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