Why Linux on the Desktop is Alive!
While helping to edit last week’s Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter, I came across an article written by Tony Bradley of PC World entitled “Why Linux on the Desktop Is Dead”. In it he cited his “30 days with Ubuntu Linux” test as proof that Linux on the desktop is not, and will not be a credible option for users.
I don’t often use this blog to take exception to things I read (otherwise it’s probably all I’d ever do), but in this case, I felt that I had to respond.
Firstly my own experience of Linux on the desktop has been overwhelmingly positive. All of my hardware works out of the box, and within a few short weeks of having Ubuntu installed, I happily deleted my Windows partition and I’ve never looked back. That’s over 5 years ago. Now, it could be argued that as an IT professional, Linux would be more accessible to me; however I’ve also installed Ubuntu on my wife’s netbook. She downloads music, browses the web, sends emails, uses productivity packages, prints documents, watches videos, and makes video calls – and has absolutely no problem with the operating system whatsoever.
So, what were Mr Bradley’s main issues? I read through the entire 30-days article, and the five things he hated most about his Ubuntu trial were:
1. Inability to sync and update his iPhone
To me this is a weak dislike. This is not Ubuntu’s or Linux’s fault. Plus the ability to update iOS over the air has now all but removed the need for me to connect my iPhone to my computer.
2. A dislike of the Banshee music player
There are many more music players in the sea, and writing off an operating system as “dead on the desktop” because you don’t like one application is really grasping at straws. If my reasons for giving up Windows were that I didn’t like Windows Media Player, then that would be a really petty argument.
3. Difficulties with Wine
Wine can be tricky, I admit; however installing any compatibility layer to run code that’s native to another operating system is going to be error-prone. Wine does a very good job at providing access to some Windows-only applications, but in my opinion it’s better to find a Linux alternative, and only go down the Wine route if you absolutely can’t live without a certain Windows program.
4. The feeling of “swimming upstream”.
I really did take issue with this one. As someone who has struggled with (and blogged about) certain vagaries of Microsoft programs and operating systems, this rankled. Ubuntu’s job is not to be a Linux-based Windows look-alike. Many things are, in fact, easier with Ubuntu – setting up and publishing websites for one. If there’s a problem, then a huge community is instantly accessible to provide help.
When you are using a different operating system it is only to be expected that certain things don’t operate the way you would immediately expect. “I really hate my new Ford because it doesn’t look like my old Toyota” would be a foolish comment, but not when it comes to computer operating systems it seems.
Mr Bradley’s comment that “if Ubuntu Linux was a microwave–I would have to first research obscure types of food uniquely crafted to work with the Ubuntu Linux microwave, then press the magic button enabling the food to be cooked, and search through forums and online help to find the specific way to rewire my microwave to work with that particular food” is just plain wrong. This is based on his attempts to get his VPN connection working. I don’t think that it’s counter-intuitive to type “VPN” in to the Ubuntu Software Center if you’re looking for…ummm…a VPN client!
As a 100% Linux user, who occasionally has to use Windows on another PC, I now find the Windows way of doing things to be counter-intuitive, unhelpful, nagging, and awkward. When fixing a friend’s Windows 7 installation recently, I couldn’t wait to get away from the busy, irritating, pop-up dialog boxes and back to the calm and elegance of my Linux installation.
5. Linux flamers
True, there are some. Mr Bradley describes them as “arrogant, self-righteous jerks”, and there certainly are many of them out there – in support of whatever operating system or gadget you want to choose. Critically, though, I think many were taking exception to his desire for Ubuntu to be an identical-looking slot-in replacement for Windows. This is never going to be the case – and shouldn’t be, either.
A further factual inaccuracy in the 30-days article had to do with the comparative file-sizes of ODT vs DOCX files. Mr Bradley states that his ODT file was 500% larger than the DOCX. That may be true for small files, but as the file size increases, the ODT format becomes much more economical. A 764k DOCX file would be only 438k as an ODT, for example. The article states that for an organization with thousands upon thousands of files, those KBs will add up, and no organization wants to have to purchase or maintain five times more storage capacity for the exact same data”. True, but not true – since the overhead only seems to be an issue with small files.
I suppose I’m really wondering why the follow-up article was written. The original 30-day test was performed with Ubuntu 11.04 in June of last year. This article was written on March 24th of this year, and didn’t really seem to add anything to the debate. The headline, though, is certainly attention-grabbing enough and guarantees a few page-views.
While he acknowledges Ubuntu’s wonderful and knowledgeable users, he also says that “it’s often difficult to find them through the sea of self-righteous flamers who berate you for not knowing what you’re doing”. That’s not true or fair at all – the Ubuntu Forums are a treasure trove of genuinely helpful folks. These people give their time and expertise for free to help out other users, so occasionally an element of frustration can creep in when a user wants a Windows clone, and acts like you owe them something because they decided to try Linux.
For those of us who get on perfectly happily with Ubuntu “it doesn’t change the fact that you’re part of a negligible market segment”. I don’t recall making any decision in life based on belonging to the biggest market segment. History has proved time and again that the majority can be very sincerely wrong. Also, since Linux is not a commercial project, it doesn’t actually need a large market share to succeed.
In the end, I just feel frustrated, because I don’t consider these type of articles to be helpful at all. It seems to be Linux-bashing for the sake of readership figures. I’m not saying that Ubuntu is better than Windows, but I do feel that, after giving Ubuntu a 30 day trial and only being able to come up with five fairly weak reasons for disliking it, Mr Bradley is drastically exaggerating when he proclaim’s Ubuntu’s desktop death. The death or life of an operating system depends on those who use it – and with tens (possibly hundreds) of millions of desktop users, I think that indicates that Linux on the desktop is very much alive.
I think you’re right that the main flaw of this article was that the author was expecting Linux to be a free Windows clone.
As a long time Linux-only user myself I found myself similarly baffled when I had to work on a Windows 7 machine recently… and somewhat horrified that there is still no easy way to install new programs (you search on google for what you’re looking for, go unverified, unauthenticated websites from vendors/producers of the software and download installer files, and when you go to install them Windows inevitably gives you a scary “untrusted software” popup warning). I didn’t even bother setting up the printer after I learned I’d have to go to some website and download a big driver package (in Linux my printers work with included drivers). These are just examples of the many troubles I found, Windows users have the luxury of being able to take these all for granted and forget them when they review other systems.
It would be interesting to find out what support outlets he was using where he found more flaming than help. The Ubuntu community works hard to keep our official outlets relatively free of these things, or at least works to calm folks down when it gets to this point.
Thanks for the comment – that’s exactly what I was getting at.
Additionally, I felt his complaint about receiving daily updates notifications was disingenuous to Linux. The beautiful, seamless updates process on Linux does a lot more than update the operating system, of course, it does all packages from repositories. This is in contrast to Windows updates, which updates the operating system plus certain Microsoft software. Other Windows software has to rely on its own update mechanism.
I understand your IRC nick now, too
Those who are saying Linux desktop is dead are living in some different world. The Linux desktop was never, so popular like it’s know. It became one of the three the most important operating systems. The points made by an original author seems to be some kind of jokes. Why would I ever care about ipad? I don’t buy anything Apple related. At first they should fix their devices to be compatible with Linux. I own an Android phone and it works great with Linux. Banshee? I’m using Amarok and it beats WinAMP and Windows Media Center in every possible way. For me Windows is almost dead, because of many reasons. Just to name few: critical holes open since years, no repositories, no Linux kernel, no KDE, no Unity. There’s just one thing I still keep it – games. However, according to Phoronix it seems Steam is coming to Linux. There are some very Linux friendly articles over the net like those:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ubuntu-oneiric-ocelot-benchmark-review,3121.html – it shows Ubuntu 11.10 beats Windows 7 badly in performance
http://www.itworld.com/open-source/248654/8-best-innovations-windows-8-borrowed-linux – what Windows 8 copied from Linux
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/whats-the-best-linux-desktop-environment-1045280 – this is a great review of Linux desktop environments.
After such positive reviews somebody probably started to fear and paid few people to write some FUD. This is very good example of FUD written in the same spirit like the article you have replied to:
http://www.economist.com/comment/1340291#comment-1340291 – it sounds like reincarnation of MS FUD since few years.
Overall, I agree with you, but I want to quibble over one thing: one of your first responses to his comments is “This is not Ubuntu’s or Linux’s fault.” People have been calling ‘not our fault’ for years, on hardware compatibility, software compatibility, performance of proprietary software, etc.
The user doesn’t care about blame. He wanted to sync his iPhone, and he couldn’t. In terms of what he’d prefer to use, that’s a point against Ubuntu.
I think the point about software (and WINE) is critical. At present, switching to Linux means switching not just the operating system, but almost all your applications. We’ve all heard new users asking how they run Word or The Sims on Linux. If the Linux desktop is going to take off, I think we need to make much more cross-platform software first, so the switch is less of a shock. We’ve already got good browsers; the next step is office software.
It’s like Matt Rudge was reading my mind.
While I’m fluent with MS Windows up to XP, Windows 7 has cost me hours of my life. Notably installing a networked printer was made challenging as I needed to use the “install local printer” wizard.
Windows also has the worst native support for reading filesystems, what if I need to look at an HFS partition, or an ext4 partition, time to find third party software, make sure it’s reputable. It may cost money. I may have to physically go get it…
Windows despite being fifteen years old, and costing a fortune has no viable text manipulation tools to speak of. If I need to quickly edit a text file, I’m stuck with notepad, which is isn’t even a fraction of emacs,vi, or awk.
I grew up with DOS and the drive/letter paradigm still makes no sense to me.
The only thing worse than Windows is the vendor branded versions. Thanks vendor for installing 8000 things I not only don’t want, but actively work to annoy me. I’ll only need to spend an hour and a half using your uninstall wizard to get rid of them.
Then the next part is spending HOURS installing all your favourite software instead of using a nice package manager. On many GNU/Linux systems, one call to apt/yum and all your favourite software installs itself. You need to check on it every once in a while and provide initial passwords, that’s it.
I think you’re putting a rather narrow interpretation on Bradley’s columns. For example, not being able to update and synch his iOS devices is not a “weak dislike”. It’s actually pretty much a showstopper. He had a choice between giving up his phone or Ubuntu.
I’ve used Linux and Macs since the mid 1990′s. I think the non-religious arguments to use Linux almost always boil down to “it’s as good as Windows”. In most respects, Ubuntu and other modern distributions are as good as Windows. But — and this is important — being “as good as” is not good enough for the underdog. If Linux is merely comparable to Windows, then Windows users really have no reason to switch. Linux needs to offer capabilities to users that Windows does not, something that miught give them a reason to migrate.
The focus of this needs to be in applications. Linux needs to move beyond merely cloning popular Windows apps (LibreOffice, etc.) and offer innovation and creativity.
I use OS X because applications are available that allow me to do things that I simply cannot do on Linux. Equivalent applications do no exist. No matter how fast and reliable the OS, I need to get stuff done.
On abusive Linux fanboys online: They exist in droves. For example, a columnist at The Economist this week posted about why he is abandoning Linux after several years of desktop use. Rather than taking on board the reason why one experienced Linux user is wlaking away, readers immediately attacked him in the comments as a liar and a paid Microsoft shill. These ad hominem character assassinations demean adult and professional Linux developers and users.
When mature knowledgable people criticize Linux, the Linux community needs to pay attention. They are your customers.
Thanks for your comments everyone.
@Jon C. I take on board what you’re saying. And I don’t have an issue with the 30-day trial per se. The recent update of iOS has rendered the problem software updating moot, and content can now be backed up to the cloud. The real issue I have is re-hashing 9-month old data for an opinion piece that seemed to be just bashing both Linux-based operating systems and their users.
Lets see. On one hand we have –
1/ ‘Flamers’ making your life hard. Really? Seems to me the authors ignore button is broken. Vs
2/ Calling the Microsoft tech line, hear you are 88th in queue and wait till your mind is mush from all the Muszak and ads on how buying Win 8 will make your life nirvana.
To me option (2) is a heck of a lot more intrusive.
My wife and I have been full-time Linux users for several years now and we’re pretty much web-junkies so our computer are a large part of our lives (we even met online) but neither of us is a programmer and we don’t work in IT. I resented that article simply because Linux has been our sole operating system for years now and we have lots of friends who also use Linux. Ok, we’re not mainstream users, whatever that is, but neither are we invisible. I started with Debian Sarge and, quite frankly, it took me more than 30 days just to figure out how to set up the sound and video. Linux has come a long way since then and if the reviews I’ve been reading are at all accurate, Ubuntu may be considerably easier for a newbie to figure out that Windows 8 is going to be but I guess that’s neither here nor there. For me, Linux is very much alive and well and I’ll never go back to using Windows under any circumstances. Just for the record, I’m thinking of getting the wife an Android phone but there will never be any iThings in our lives. Open Source is power to the people, in a meaningful and tangible way. I don’t see that changing.
Are you able to name that applications?
I’m sorry, but you’re mistaken. What’s abusive is article that appeared at Economist is a bunch of lies and subjective opinions. It seems you have missed a little older article published on the same site by the same person, but in even worse attitude. That’s why everything suggest he was paid to spread FUD. The commenter’s just pointed out where the author is mistaken. The funny thing about his articles is you can replace “Linux” by anything else and the articles will remain valid, because they’re nothing, but bunch of generalizations.
New Note 4
After almost 20 years of Mac usage, I’ve switched to Linux 4-5 months ago because of Lion. And though I disliked Unity and Gnome Shell at least as much as Lion, I’m happy with Linux.
Yet as for the “many music players” argument, there’s a ridiculous situation unfortunately.
On Mac I wouldn’t find iTunes something special; it was so natural. Hence its being the most widely used app. Anyone set to develop a music player would naturally create something like that. Yet now in Linux I find it very special, because contrary to some criticisms Linux developers are trying to be different and to re-invent wheel as a square.
I’m talking about album grid view sorted by albumartist tag instead of artist, gapless playback and album mode in playlist view, that is, albums are grouped, not shown as useless track lists. This is a great convenience, because if you’ve got more than 100 albums you might need playlists containing whole albums as well as only songs.
Gapless playback was there when I’ve first switched to Linux, shortly after it’s broken and now it’s working again (not sure what the next gstreamer release will bring though). There are many gapless albums and those gaps are really gaps in the middle of the music in those albums which are simply unacceptable.
As for the album cover grid view sorted by albumartist, without this basic feature a music player is not really functional, because one cannot remember all his/her albums/tracks, so needs a visual clue to browse and find an album or track, more so with classical music where album titles are rarely meaningful.
So all those Clementines, Rhythmboxes and Amaroks are useless in this resspect, not to mention their other shortcomings like 400-1000 MB memory usage of Amarok even when closed!
Banshee has the grid view, but it is ridiculously sorted by album title. So all your Vivaldi, King Crimson and Beatles albums are scattered all over the place, defeating the logic of album cover view itself. Gmusicbrowser and Guayadeque are better in this respect, but they don’t have grouped album mode view and making playlists and generally using them requires many clicks especially Gmusicbrowser. Elementary’s Beatbox tries to be a replica of iTunes and is the best of the bunch, but yesterday after building a library of 12000 FLACs and after rebooting its RAM usage has rocketted to around 4 GB. And I couldn’t find a global hotkeys option.
At the moment there’s only one music player meeting and indeed exceeding the iTunes feauters: Cantata. But you have to install it from source as it’s new and not included in the repositories. And you have to deal with the hassle of MPD configuration as it is an MPD client.
A very fine non-MPD option will be YaRock once the good developer fixes some bugs.
Another frustration in my Linux usage is its habit of allowing auto-suspend even if a process is going on (like playing some music or building the music library). I can’t just leave it on and go to the gocery. I must manually disable auto-suspend. Besides, I couldn’t find a way or software to enable such a feature (am talking about inhibiting auto-suspend, but not screensaver). This is ridiculous.
I forget to add: it’s a second Linux rant at Economist, made by the same person. There’s something wrong with that, because if he left Linux after his first rant how is this possible he’s leaving Linux after another one? A logical mistake that proves the author just spreads FUD and what’s worth noting his second FUD is the same FUD MS was spreading few years ago.
With the all respect how closed application can use your computers memory? Personally I find Amarok and Clementine much better and faster than iTunes which I can’t stand.
@Paweł
Yes, I don’t get it either, but I’ve tried Amarok many times and it’ behaved always in that manner.
Btw. I’ve just checked Cantata and it looks great. I’ve never heard about it before, so thanks.
You’re welcome. Glad to help.
I just hopped over to read the Economist article, which has been mentioned a couple of times, and FUD is definitely the best way to describe it. The tone of the article seemed like it was supposed to be ironic (I hate the continual “your correspondent” third person references), but without being funny.
All operating systems are built on many different packages “stapled together”, and obviously operating systems for phones and tablets are going to require a more limited set of packages than a desktop or server.
To say that he has just “one criticism” over Linux Mint’s update process, it seems like an overreaction to dump Linux entirely.
Also, just responding to a couple of comments made over on Reddit. With regard to my claim that “all of my hardware works out of the box”, one respondent wrote: “The author is very lucky. Years on, I still have serious hardware issues with Linux.” I suppose that the more Linux installs I do, the luckier I get
but I do a lot of checking before purchasing any new piece of hardware to make sure it will work properly with Ubuntu. I did the same checking before buying my last Windows laptop (about 6 years ago), so it’s not something specific to Linux.
Another comment stated “I’m not sure I feel that people who can open with a statement like “as a long time linux user” or “having used linux for five years” are really qualified to criticize a review written by somebody who has no (or at least very little) experience.” Actually, I’ve been using Linux since 1994, but only on the desktop for 5 years. During that time I also ran a successful computer services company, selling and maintaining large Windows- and Linux-based systems. And I’m not criticising his review. I’m criticising the follow-up article, written 9 months later and based on old data. Where he not only seems to have hardened his stance against Linux, but fervently believes that his own reasons for not sticking with it are still valid, whereas many of them are now largely non-issues.
During the 30-day trial, he received help from people who he described as “wonderful”. That’s the reception that he got as a new user. The backlash against the follow-up article is because it’s just fluff and FUD. It adds nothing new to the debate, doesn’t help anyone who’s genuinely thinking of switching to Linux and, in the end, only serves to increase pageviews from staunch supporters from both sides.
I am a programmer; I use mainly C and Python so I happily run a Linux machine but I’ve spent my fair share of time programming on Windows and some time on Mac OSX: I have a Mac, a Windows 7 partition but i mainly use Linux even when I’m not working.
Through time I’ve tried to convince many of my friends and a few relatives to give Linux a try. The sad truth I’ve learnt is this: most of them like the idea of free software, the ‘look and feel’ of the distro I install on their pcs (usually Ubuntu or Mint) and they tend to have almost no problem with the applications because, let’s be honest, if you don’t have specific needs (like syncing your iPhone) you either use the same programs regardless of the os (Firefox, Thunderbird, Vlc, etc) or the ‘new’ ones don’t look so different from the ones are used to.
What eventually drives people away from Linux, in my experience, is the feel of ‘work in progress’ that is constantly around open source software. Something may be working fine now and be broken in the next version of your favourite distro. You may get used to kde 3 and then kde 4 comes out (or gnome 3 or unity). Suddently a library creates problems with the software you’re using or there’s a tiny graphic bug that drives you crazy. It’s not like other os have no problems, they just give users the idea nothing is changing on the surface (well, a part from Windows 8) which is good, because ‘normal’ users loathe change even more than sysadmins: I think the feeling of constant change is what drives people away.
@Matt Rudge , on your comments about hardware compatibility – one problem could be that Sandy Bridge Intel has been out for quite some time now, has penetrated the market very well, and as yet, is only well-supported as of kernel 3.2.12. Optimus is pretty much the norm now for laptop video chipsets, and it’s completely unsupported by nvidia or the standard open source drivers. Most new computer purchases are laptops (IIRC), so this means that the preponderance of new installs are going to have issues. I think the problem is that we just live in a particular bubble of time where you can’t go buy a machine and slap Linux on it and have it be as trouble free as that experience was a few years ago.
And I concur with you and others on other aspects of drivers. My external USB audio device “just works” in Linux, but the manufacturer no longer supports it and, as such, there is no driver for it on Windows Vista & 7, let alone 64-bit. (I even see dmesg recognizes it and assigns certain quirk patches to it – it was an early device before the USB audio spec was finalized).
Scanners and printers have been much the same sort of experience. I plug them in and they work. No nasty 500MB driver installs filled with crapware (Label Maker! Pro Demo). My scanner, in particular, is better on Linux than Windows – it has only proprietary control software on Windows, yet there is a SANE driver for Linux so that any image capture program can use it.
And another point of interest, my gaming laptop, as delivered to me by the manufacturer, has “Unknown Devices” in the device manager, and I can’t figure out for the life of my what drivers are missing. It was shipped to me this way from the manufacturer (Lenovo). In summary, I find the whole enterprise, of slagging off Linux for this stuff when Windows and its ecosystem is such a mixed bag, to be dubious.
@Mark , you’re quite correct. After my venerable Dell laptop finally stopped working, I did a lot of research before settling on the Samsung RF511 – the results from http://friendly.ubuntu.com helped a lot. After that, it was just a case of installing Linux from the iso file & happy days
“These people give their time and expertise for free to help out other users, so occasionally an element of frustration can creep in when a user wants a Windows clone, and acts like you owe them something because they decided to try Linux.”
That is soooo true, sadly.
Very nice article!
Here’s an idea, rather than belittling someone for being honest with their experiences with Linux, fix the problems that he has.
@Joe Thanks for your comment. I think that’s a wonderful idea; however I wasn’t belittling his experience. If you read my other comments, you’d see that I wrote the following:
The problem I have is not with the issues he had as a new user. It’s with the follow up article, written 9 months after his original trial, and based on a hardened, negative stance. His original 30-day trial article actually ended quite positively. That’s why I thought the recent article was unfair and needed addressing.
All of his problems with Linux are really problems with Ubuntu, which, admittedly DOES suck. Linux Mint, a host of other Linux OSes solve all of those issues. I’m looking forward to a stable release of SolusOS!!
@Thomas Kluyver The difference here is that Apple has been actively hindering compatibility. Going so far as to change encryption methods and adding further authentication just to make sure nothing but iTunes can connect to iDevices. Sure saying “Not my fault” is not the must genuine apriach but when the hardware manufacturer actively work to thwart your attempts at compatibility you cant really be held responsible any more. (Besides several iDevices do actually work with linux. It just takes a while for the software to get around Apples tricks)
@rhY Well…I’m not going to get into a “my distro is better than yours” slanging match, there’s too much of that around. If you’re using Linux and happy with it, then I’m happy. I’ve used Mint and it seems like a perfectly good distro, so use whichever one you’re comfortable with
@Michael : That doesn’t make it any better for the user, though. If his existing device isn’t compatible with Linux, that makes Linux less useful to him. He doesn’t care who’s responsible, he just wants it to work.
If anything, your description just makes his situation worse. If Apple are being deliberately uncooperative, then even if Linux works out iPhones in the near future, there’s no guarantee that it will keep working, or work with the next model of iPhone. That doesn’t inspire confidence.
@Jon C.
For me Linux is not as good as Windows, it is considerably better. As of 31 Jan 2012, I, and my company (a small to be sure) became completely Windows free. On that day we removed our last Windows machine (in fact it was a Virtual Machine, as all our hardware was already running a Linux based OS (Linux Mint on the Desktops, Debian Server).
For us we can do everything we need and want on a Linux based OS. Anything from Socialising (Facebook, LXer, this site, instant messaging and video chat and calls to land lines) to Design and developing programming web applications… I’m a C# programmer, and the beautiful thing here I don’t have to learn a new programming language, all I need to do is install Mono and MonoDevelop, and get used to a few differences between MonoDevelop and VisualStudio. I can even host those web applications on Linux servers. What would I want Windows for?
In addition I fancy myself a musician, I have a small recording studio, that uses Ardour, Audacity, Hydrogen, and a few other Linux based applications, which with appropriate hardware, I can record and mix my own original tunes, I don’t need Windows.
My partner, who is by no means a technical person uses a Linux based OS to get her work done and to do her socialising, has no need of Windows. Linux for her is far better than Windows, which she uses as a volunteer at the local museum (she is in a position to make a comparison, so that is her opinion). It’s annoying is what she says.
For us, personally, and the company, Windows, and it’s ecosystem, is an unnecessary expense.
I notice people talk about music players on Linux, a lot. I don’t use one, have never used on (except to see what I’m missing…. decided nothing). I play all my music via MPlayer or VLC, mostly VLC. I simply go to the directory where the music is stored and slect the songs I want to play, or do a search and select the songs from that.
I don’t have a problem with having lots of, or no, music players.
@Thomas Kluyver
“If Apple are being deliberately uncooperative…”
Precisely why I dropped my iPhone from the top of the stairs, and claimed insurance on it. Since it wasn’t going to work properly with my Linux systems I had no need of it. Android works just fine.
@tracyanne That’s your choice (and mine – I wouldn’t buy an iPhone in the first place). But a lot of people own iPhones, and won’t want to throw them away just to use desktop Linux.
This is the same as my point about software above: we might persuade people to change their operating system. But if they have to replace their phone/applications at the same time, we can expect much more resistance. Thankfully, on the phone side, Android is a realistic competitor for iPhones.
Android is not for me but would suggest Android users get Snapseed. As for Ubuntu I had it on a G4 Powerbook for a long time. I later had Fedora on it. Later with Unity and Gnome Shell I brought an HP with Windows 7. I still used Gimp, etc… Last month I got my first smartphone which was an Iphone 4s. I ended up using it more and more instead of my laptop. I ended up ordering the new Ipad which should arrive tomorrow. However, if Gimp, Scribus, Audacity, Libreoffice, Kdenlive, Digikam were there for a Linux Tablet I’d use it instead.
It also does not help with Linus comments on KDE when they changed and when he started using Gnome and it changed and since he is currently using Xfce and if it changes… do you see the pattern?
Also changing default apps like Ubuntu has from RB to Banshee back to RB etc does not help. Also if I rem back when I first used Fedora it was using F-Spot just like Ubuntu was. So pick the default apps, stick with them, work with the developers and…
Linux is dead on the desktop for PC World because they don’t generate ad revenue.
Indeed, users just want things to work. Just like on my WinXP box, upgrading to SP3 broke my video drivers and I was told they were no longer supported. Just like several of our perfectly functional printers are no longer supported under the latest & greatest versions of Windows. Just like support for my Mac was dropped (a PPC iBook G3 with hardware specs that run Linux quite well), meaning no more security updates nor feature upgrades that break certain websites. All the blame in the world doesn’t make my video card function on XP+SP3, make my printers work in Win7, or get me the latest version of Safari.
They all have issues, but with a little care in my hardware choices, my Debian installations have required far less care & feeding than any other OS I’ve used.
@Thomas Kluyver
Maybe I should have did a smiley at the end of my post.
@LionHater
Don’t you think that u are noob and can’t handle a music player..Why to blame the software when you are the one ignorant.
@Vinit Kumar Please don’t name call. We can have a debate without getting personal with each other.
There are sooooo many things to say. I’ll summarise them in a “you are 100% right, Matt”.
Next, please!
Simply true! And there is life outside Ubuntu in the GNU/Linux world, too.
GNU/Linux is not another system made free, is GNU/Linux! Those who move from windows to MacOS also have to chande and may face difficulties, even though it is unanimous that MacOS is way better than windows… and not just coincidentally it is also a *nix system in its base (derived from a FreeBSD version).
The differences between MacOS and GNU/Linux are not small, on top of all is the freedom to “do what you want and can” do in Linux, vs the “don’t touch even though after having payed for” it in the other
@Vinit Kumar
Yes, I’m noob as I’ve myself mentioned in my comment, though not a completely virgin one. I’ve tried almost all Linux music players including the MPD and XMMS2 clients; have reported bugs and made feature requests; and am a tester of the two of them. And now have written above why and where they fail for my needs. As I’ve explained above, except for one of them, THEY DO NOT HAVE SOME REASONABLE FEAUTERS I NEED. It’s as simple as that. It has nothing to do with my noobness or ignorance.
Besides one doesn’t have to be a geek just to “handle a music player”. In fact one shouldn’t need to “handle” a software just to listen to music. We’re not talking about flying a plane.
recently Ingo Molnar, kernel developer, posted a analysis about the state of linux desktop
https://plus.google.com/109922199462633401279/posts/HgdeFDfRzNe
Must read!
Wine can be a genuine problem, especially if you have a Windows-only app that has some data in it that you need to keep. I’ve run into Wine bugs (logged and in the BTS), that make Wine unusable for those apps. I’d recommend VirtualBox with a Windows install for such apps as being preferable to Wine, and it works fine and runs everything flawlessly.
Hello, just wanted to mention, I loved this article. It was funny.
Keep on posting!