Lately I've been reading various websites that question wether Linux is ready for the desktop or not.
First, I'd like to say that this statement is already wrong to begin with. Linux is not ready for the desktop, and will never be, as much as the Windows kernel isn't ready for the desktop either. The kernel (and Linux IS the kernel) is what your operating system uses.
The proper question in this case would be:
Even if you rephrase the question like that I think the question is still incorrect. The problem is in the part that says "the desktop". Whose desktop? Yours? Mine? Aunt Tilly?
If you look back to the days when MS-DOS was still the most prevalent operating system, I'm sure you can recall people that could work with it, even if it was your Aunt Tilly. She knew how to start and work with Word Perfect, Lotus 1-2-3 or even DBase III.
Ok, to be honest, she didn't know exactly what was going on in her computer, she didn't know anything about HIMEM.SYS or EMM386.EXE and what they were supposed to do. But she knew that when she had a new program on a floppy disk the usual thing to do was to type
and answer some questions as where the files should be copied to (standard location) and wether autoexec.bat should be modified (usually 'yes').
After that she just fired up Norton Commander (or something like that) and started the application. If something went wrong she had a very nice booklet that told her what to do.
Fast forward to the present...
Two groups are debating wether Microsoft Windows XP and/or Some Linux Distribution are ready for the desktop. Here they aim at end-users, like Aunt Tilly. Aunt Tilly got a bit older, grew a little moustache and looks at both.
She tries Windows XP, which looks very polished to her. After a few days of working and browsing the internet she now has 5 extra toolbars in Internet Explorer, all with almost identical extra's (including the spyware). She sees popups on her screen for online casino's, naked babes, warning messages that her computer is infected, but she never heard of the term spyware. She tries to look in the book what is happening to her computer, but it only says to press F1 at some place to get some help on a subject she never asked for in the first place.
Then she posts a message to some forum she found by accident using one of her many extra toolbars. She posts the message and includes her email address, hoping for a swift answer...
And she gets them. A lot of them. Most of them advice her that she should use Cialis, Viagra or any other enhancement so that her erection stays longer, harder and her cumshots will blow off the head of her impressed girlfriend, and (if that girl dies because of it) she always can pick up one of the hundred bored housewifes who just want to have a fuck with her.
Amongst the more sensible replies there are a few that say that she is a fucking n00b and she should have used Mozilla Firefox to prevent all those things that happened to her. Ofcourse the not-so-friendly replies don't give a link to the site, so again with some more reluctance she has to post a message where she can get this wonderful program that should be the salvation of her PC.
Again a lot of answers of which she can throw 95% away. The remaining five percent are very brief, shooting acronyms at her like UTFS. Whenever she navigates to www.utfs.com she finds out the domain is for sale, but no link where to download Firefox. After using one of the search bars she finds out the actual site, downloads the software and installs it. Yet the problems of unwanted popups remain. Even if she doesn't use Firefox and is just trying to figure out Word and where those nice markupcodes have been since Word Perfect 5.1 she gets them.
And then, at some birthday party she talks to a young man that says Linux is the answer. He even is so friendly to give her an URL (which she found out is a cryptic way to say "address of a website") where she could order a free evaluation CD.
And in a few weeks she gets the CD. She is thrilled. But she also has questions. What should she do with her old documents, her highscore for Zuma and fotos she received from her family? In a desperate attempt to make some sort of backup the mails all the important things to herself and proceeds to install Linux. After some anxious moments she got it running and is greeted with a friendly picture of a multicolored group of people holding hands.
A few days later she learned with which program she could browse the internet, how she can send and receive email and even do some wordprocessing. But she can't print on her Lexmark printer and she doesn't know why. The webcam she used in Windows now doesn't work anymore when she wants to have a chat with her family.
Again she searches for answers on the internet, since she doesn't have a manual. She posts some questions. Gets answers...
"Use The Fucking Search, you idiot!"
"You shouldn't use distro XXX, you should have used YYY which is faster after you compile for three days"
Aunt Tilly gives up, gets her old computer out the attic where it has been gathering dust for a few years, fires up Word Perfect and starts typing her last will as she is feeling very old of a sudden...
After this fictious story I can be very brief in my conclusion about what operating system is ready for the desktop.
An operating system is successful or a complete failure depending on documentation and support. In the case of Aunt Tilly the most successful was MS-DOS. She had a book that explained almost everything she needed to know. With Windows the got a small booklet that explained almost nothing. With the Linux distribution it was even less.
Almost every software package, wether it is an operating system or an application comes with help on CD or some community on internet. But most people (at least I do) prefer a good manual next to my computer and work through the chapters and browse the reference in case of a specific need. Or patient people that can help Aunt Tilly, instead of insulting her.
For the aunts that read this weblog entry I can tell that there's hope. There are a lot of books written on any subject I just covered here which you can buy.
Use The Fucking Search, N00B!
1 comment:
Great article rajaat :)
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