Linux: The not quite ready for prime time OS?

[Soybomb]

So what is keeping linux from being a viable OS for the average home user? Lets cover some points here. For the record I think it makes a very excellent server OS and is a strong competitor with NT/2000. In the home market though its still not cutting it.

1.) Too many distros are confusing the newbie I think, natural selection will eventually occur here.

2.) The bootloader. How many distros ship with lilo? Lilo was fine a few years ago but lately all my experience have made me deem it crap. Anymore I just install lilo to the linux partition and use boot magic. Not such a great way to convince people to switch.

3.) Whats up with doing a desktop install and have 400 daemons load? Does the average home user really need sendmail and ftp server to start on their desktop machine? On most distro's I've played with they do unless you do the custom install that most newbies wont.

4.) Can I get some true type fonts please? Why must every distro have a differnt way to get TTF imported and working. I can't ever get good directions, they are always very iffy and it takes an hour to set them up. I want a click, point to fonts directory type install.

5.) Whats with all the quirks between os's? I can install redhat 6.2 or 7.0 and they will install okay and lilo will work properly. With slack 7.1 though lilo was nonfunctional from setup and the mouse twitched in xwindows and didnt work without some tweaking. I could go on but you understand.

Add to my list, I have other gripes that aren't coming to mind right now I'm sure. Linux is a great OS, tremendously powerful, etc. I just haven't seen a good distro yet for your run of the mill user with standard hardware. I mean my mouse wouldnt work in slack? Whats so hard about getting a ps2 intellimouse to work? *sigh* I do hope the "perfect" distro shows up though as its sorely needed to give M$ a run for their money. Until it does though 98/me/2000 is going to be more appealing to most consumers.

 

[GT1999]

Nice topic I think this thread will last a while - I hope some real Linux gurus pour in here, I just started using Linux a couple of months ago. I'll comment on some of your ideas, despite me being a newbie and all




<< 1.) Too many distros are confusing the newbie I think, natural selection will eventually occur here. >>


I agree with you completely here. I've used various distros - Mandrake, Caldera, Slackware, and RH. There certainly is a difference between them. So far, I like Slackware the most. RedHat is next for me to play with I already have the ISO files for CD 1 and 2 for 7.1



<< 2.) The bootloader. How many distros ship with lilo? Lilo was fine a few years ago but lately all my experience have made me deem it crap. Anymore I just install lilo to the linux partition and use boot magic. Not such a great way to convince people to switch. >>


Indeed. Lilo is competely crap. It takes some tweaking to get it to even work somewhat perfectly ..



<< 3.) Whats up with doing a desktop install and have 400 daemons load? Does the average home user really need sendmail and ftp server to start on their desktop machine? On most distro's I've played with they do unless you do the custom install that most newbies wont. >>


I agree with you here, also. That's why I prefer distros such as Slackware or even something such as FreeBSD (which I don't have much experience with, might I add). I currently am only using the FTP, sendmail, and telnet daemons regularly.



<< 4.) Can I get some true type fonts please? Why must every distro have a differnt way to get TTF imported and working. I can't ever get good directions, they are always very iffy and it takes an hour to set them up. I want a click, point to fonts directory type install. >>


LOL, I don't have much to say about this - I spend most of the time in front of the command line interface at a very slow resolution



<< 5.) Whats with all the quirks between os's? I can install redhat 6.2 or 7.0 and they will install okay and lilo will work properly. With slack 7.1 though lilo was nonfunctional from setup and the mouse twitched in xwindows and didnt work without some tweaking. I could go on but you understand. >>


Ouch - that's no good. I'm using the same MS Intellimouse PS/2 with Slack 7.1 right now, works great. I all agree with the quirks between os's, however. Damn lilo to hell



<< Until it does though 98/me/2000 is going to be more appealing to most consumers. >>


Exactly. I use my Linux box as a Counterstrike, FTP, mail, web, and telnet server at work - my home machine remains to be Win2000. Just feel sorry for all the people using WinME with beautiful hardware, that don't know better

 

[Soybomb]

I think we need some clearly distinct desktop and then server distros. For instance I have a box to my left that is conected to my cable modem doing NAT, running a ftp server, webserver, and with ssh listening. Works wonderful at what it does. There is no reason to have this things listening for most home users. Reference the recent ramen worm that exploited unpatched redhat machines with the ftp daemon running. If it wasn't running it wouldnt have been a problem

For day to day use I'm guilty of saying i use windows more on my other box. Open GL works right out of the box, the mouse works with no tweaking, it boots, etc. I can make linux do all the other stuff but its more work and I promise that while my mom could install 98, chances are slim she'd have as good of a time making lilo work I'm really looking forward to the next series of releases though, hopefully they will be better. I'm quite anxious to see how SuSE 7.1 is going to be with 2.4 and KDE2 right from the box, hopefully it will be a bit nicer and a sign of things to come.

I was hoping this would be a hop topic and stay up a while too, but people aren't exactly biting hehe.

 

[Shuxclams]

Soy,
I think that you have a valid point there about the default installation and an average user. I love me some Linux and I have too treid many distros and had better luck with some and better luck even with certian releases. I would think with all the *NIX users here and the ones that frequent Linuxnewbie that a standard/generic distro or modded distro aimed soley at providing &quot;newbies&quot; a decent install of basic functionality would be great. You would need the basic's like, XFree 4.01 at start up, Netscape/Mozilla for browser and mail, WordPerfect/Star Office, gAIM/Everybuddy, QII/QIII, and as far as TTF, Adobe has had beta products for linux before, Why not start a petition to have them port Adobe Type Manager to Linux? Just ideas. Otherwise as I stated in an earlier thread, I plan on loading a K6-2 450 rig for my 3.5 year old son with Mandrake 7.2 and the needed &quot;Kid style&quot; software, if I can find some....







SHUX

 

[Soybomb]

Hehe Shux, I'm convinced you can find practically anything from freshmeat, I doubt kiddie software should be a problem

Now....how to get venture funding.....I might make a good distro, I might not, eitherway I'm retiring in 5 years

 

[PliotronX]

I read some interesting stuff on Linuxnewbie.org about this very topic. The author of the article said the majority of Wintel users cannot handle even seeing the console, let alone all the tweaking necessary to get it working most of the time. Mandrake is the closest I've found to be as a userfriendly distro possible, but it runs like a dog.. I dunno if it's KDE2 or that it's due to utter bloat, but it seems less responsive than a DX4 running Win98.

It's a sad fact that it will take a lot more time and energy to make Linux idiotproof, and once it does, it will probably become charge based just like Windows.. face it, most people are &quot;dumb&quot; in the sense of not wanting, needing or caring to learn the nuances of running Linux. M$ is not only evil in business procedures, but also making people retarded to what computers can really do. Apple is even worse..

I'm hoping the same as you, that one day, there will be a complete idiotproof distro of Linux that will finally be the last nail in M$' coffin.. but I'm not expecting it

 

[MereMortal]

I, for one, hope that linux never gets 'dumbed down' enough to be idiotproof. To do that you would have to take away much of the flexibility and power that make un*x-based operating systems so powerful.

I've gotten to the point where if anyone asks me, &quot;Should I use linux?&quot;, or &quot;Convince me to use linux.&quot; I say, &quot;No!&quot; If you aren't willing to put the time in to learn the about the operating system and if you can benefit from it, then stick with MS. If you had tried to install and use linux when it first came out in the early 90's, you wouldn't be complaining about how the process sucks now, you would be sitting back and thinking about how easy it is to install now.

 

[Shuxclams]

Mortal the point is a desktop install for the same folks who use AOL/Win98/ME if Linux is going to make strides in the &quot;avg. home user market, a Install choice for those setting it up, just as we already have a Server and custom choice we could have &quot;idiotproof&quot; chioce.....




SHUX

 

[BOFH]

Shux

Those people are prime canidates for embeded solutions such as the WinTV and Linux systems that are similar. AOL and Gateway have a box in development that is just that. Most of the users you are talking about could care less what OS they run as long as they get their spam and outlook virii

--

I personally think Linux is just fine for desktop use as is right now. Of course my needs for a desktop are not simply a windows replacment

 

[Soybomb]

SOrry bofh, but its going to be quite a few more years before a set top box or the like can replace a PC. People like the versatility of the pc, word processing, internet, games, etc. If linux is going to be a serious competitor to the ms desktop os, it needs work still.

Mortal, I'm not endorsing changing the linux kernel in any way. Let linus have a blast and continue with it. There is a need for a extra simple distrobution though. If you still want your extra mean version of slack or debian go for it. But there needs to be something simpler out there for the new people who don't care how their os works, they just want it to work! Power users are not the majority and for linux to have any great success in the desktop market these changes are going to be necessary!

 

[Shuxclams]

I dont know that a whole distro is the answer, a choice on install would be nice. ie; a install last week I had very lean but I had everything I needed and set up a mail server, it would only make sense to have some type of &quot;Computing Lightweight&quot; choice.




SHUX

 

[MereMortal]

Yeah, well, I tend to get grumpy when posting at 4 AM.

But my point, once you read beyond all the bitterness, is just that I differ in opinion about what makes an OS successful. You guys seem to be implying that an OS must be on every desktop and put MS out of business to be worthy.

Simply put, why? This style of OS was never intended for the person who doesn't care how their OS works. Linux has become successful in certain markets because those users can take advantage of access to the core parts of the OS, which they can't do in say, MS products.

All these distributions and variants that you guys complain about are due to companies trying to do what you are suggesting. Trying to make money by catering to the bottom line 'casual' user. I do understand your points, but I have also seen how the OS distributions have gone downhill because of it.

 

[BOFH]

Soybomb.

A set top box or even a very simple one can do more than you think. That is what the Iopener was all about. If you have a device like a that that is expandebale to some degree it would suite the needs for most poeple you mentioned. This is similar in concept to a Handspring.

Soybomb

There are plenty of people who are convinced that debian with its apt-get is exactly what you want

MereMortal

I agree, linux doesn't need to displace M$ to be good and usefull and meet its goals

 

[Damaged]

Can't believe they actually archive back this far, but this is something I quoted from O'Reilly's Power Tools way back on 2 April 2000 (sorry about the length):

Power Grows on You

It has been said that UNIX is not an operating system as much as it is a way of thinking. In &quot;The UNIX Programming Environment&quot; Kernighan and Pike write that at the heart of the UNIX philosophy &quot;is the idea that the power of a system comes more from the relationships among programs than from the programs themselves.&quot;

Almost all of the utility programs that run under UNIX share the same user interface - a minimal interface to be sure - but one that allows them to be strung together in pipelines to do jobs that no single program could do alone.

There are many operating systems with features UNIX can't match - better performance, better documentation, more ease of use. But none of them are so powerful or so exciting to use once you get the hang of pipes and filters, and the programming power of the shell.

A new user starts by stringing together simple pipelines and, when they get long enough, saving them into a file for later execution. Gradually, if the user has the right temperament, he gets the idea that the computer can do more of the boring part of many jobs. Perhaps he starts out with a for loop to apply the same editing script to a series of files. Conditions and cases soon follow and before long, he finds himself programming.

On most systems, you need to learn consciously how to program. You must take up the study of one or more programming languages and spend a fair amount of concentrated effort before you can do anything productive. UNIX, on the other hand, teaches programming imperceptibly - it is a slow but steady extension of the work you do simply in interacting with the computer.

Before long, you can step outside the bounds of the tools that have already been provided by the designers of the system, and solve problems that don't quite fit the mold. This is sometimes called hacking: in other contexts, it is called &quot;engineering.&quot; In essence, it is the ability to build a tool when the right one is not already on hand.

Dals Dougherty compares UNIX to the Volkswagen beetle, that unique automobile of the 60's and 70's. Its simple design was in part what made it popular; the &quot;bug&quot; was hand-maintanable. VW owners (users) could tinker with their cars, performing such tasks as changing spark plugs by hand. They scoffed at owners of other cars who depended upon auto mechanics. It is perhaps this same feeling of independence (let me do it myself) that the UNIX environment fosters in its users. There are many other, quite capable software environments that are packaged to keep users out, like a television set.

In some ways, the secret of UNIX is that its working parts are visible. The UNIX environment, like the VW beetle, is designed so that users can take it apart and put it back together. UNIX provides general-purpose tools, all of which are designed to work together.

No single program, however well thought out, will solve every problem. There is always a special case, a special need, a situation that runs counter to the expected. But UNIX is not a single program. It is a collection of hundreds of them, and with these basic tools, a clever or dedicated person can meet just about any computing problem.

Like the fruits of any advanced system, these capabilities don't fall unbidden into the hands for new users. But they are there for the reaching. And over time, even those users who want a system they don't have to think about will gradually reach out for those capabilities. Faced with a choice between an hour spent on a boring, repetitive task and an hour putting together a tool that will do the task in a flash, most of us will choose the latter.

--Tim O'Reilly, UNIX power tools, 2nd ed.

This has always been my motivation for any UNIX, or UNIX like, OS. Those who judge them as an alternative to Windows, in particular, as a gaming platform, will almost inevitably be disappointed. However, as a development, or network workstation I think it is without question not only a viable alternative, but it is THE desktop of choice.

 

[MGMorden]

I do agree that Linux is just a little too complicated for the average user. I didn't used to think so until my roommate (who's a fairly experienced windows user) installed it on his pc so he could do some programming. I never heard so many complaints and &quot;this thing sucks&quot; coming from over there before in my life. He eventually got that hang of using it but it took a LOT of instructional sessions from myself and I still admin the Linux side of his machine. I'm sure there's a way to get it easy enough for a novice (my setup is after it's setup but when I install Linux it's a 3 or 4 day process getting everything EXACTLY how I want it).