Linux for noobs?

[JD50]

Mostly the issue is that it goes against the perception of "openess" of linux. I know its just the source thats open mostly but still, its just off putting that it feels more closed than windows for an end user.

Where did you come up with this? It makes no sense.

 

[JD50]

I'm speaking about its user friendliness to new users.

dealing with dependency hell just shouldn't happen, never mind tarballs...or compiling stuff yourself The whole dependency issue just seems far worse in linux than in windows.

I'd say that package management in distros like fedora and Ubuntu are much more user friendly than windows. How is it easier to go to the internet, find the software you need, pay for the software, download the software, install the software, then update the software, vs using yum or apt-get to just install the software?

 

[JD50]

Yea I can't remember the last time that I had to compile something. I seriously doubt that a normal end user would find a piece of software that they need to compile...or even have problems with it not being in a normal repository which has all of the necessary dependencies.

 

[0roo0roo]

If you can't see problems you can't change

I guess thats just another reason why linux has trouble in the general consumer market.

 

[Nothinman]

If you can't see problems you can't change

I guess thats just another reason why linux has trouble in the general consumer market.

But the problems you mentioned don't exist. Only developers ever have to deal with dependency issues or compiling anything these days. And having everything update in one central location is a convenience, not a problem. Every app having to write it's own updater, like on Windows, is a problem.

 

[insect9]

If you can't see problems you can't change

I guess thats just another reason why linux has trouble in the general consumer market.

What's the problem? That it's just so convenient? That doesn't sound like a problem to me...

 

[JD50]

If you can't see problems you can't change

I guess thats just another reason why linux has trouble in the general consumer market.

That doesn't even make sense. I can see plenty of problems with linux as a desktop for the average joe, I'm just saying that you are incredibly out of touch and obviously haven't used a modern distro if you think that a normal user is out there compiling their own packages and are stuck in rpm hell.

You can't make things up and then tell people that they're ignoring problems when they call you on it.

 

[lxskllr]

I might have lost track of where this thread was going, but maybe complete installer packages would make OrooOroo happy. I wouldn't mind seeing that as an option myself. The download would be much larger, but you wouldn't have to worry about not having dependencies taken care of. The installer could prompt for a version mismatch, and let the user decide what he wants to do about it. I don't know that I'd call that user friendly, but it would be convenient for people with spotty, or non existent net access.

 

[Mem]

Feels more like the restrictive oppressive apple bubble more than anything else. I don't want to be bombarded with updates like that. Even more so since i'm using vm.



which is why firefox 3.5.8 is the latest update in ubuntu?

hey grandma, just open terminal and start typing for your update!
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

Then:

sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

I'm using Firefox(Namoroka) 3.64pre on Ubuntu 9.10 which is pretty nippy,I don't consider myself Linux expert but it does not get much easier then Ubuntu or Linux Mint for ease of use,the learning curve going from Windows to those two is very minor IMHO,I'm actually using my Ubuntu at the moment due to a PSU failure on my main Win7 PC,I don't find using Ubuntu as my main OS at the moment a problem or an inconvenience.

I do like the Linux download package managers ,its one of the very good things about Linux I like.