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Why not Linux

bpb101

This is just something i cant understand. Why do people not use linux?
yes there no call of duty and other mainstream software but that because of market share.
People who use windows and mac. what wrong with linux that you wont use it.

These days there is very little in linux(depending on the distro) that requires a lot of knowledge about linux or IT
is it just the hassle of formating your new dell or hp.

Give your reason below and ill poll it

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Scruffles

am speaking as a linux geek and ocasional user of BSD but do know that windows users dont like making the changeover because linux takes a bit more effort than windows plus it also means having to get used to using a new operating system all over again.
to people who are interested in technology and have both the time and confidence to try something new they are the ones who can be won over,those that are left just want to stick with something they already know that 'works' but linux is unknown territory to them.
it will take encouragement to get people to see outside of their small comfort zone, show them what linux is like,tailor it to their needs.

am currently in the middle of winning over a windows fanboy uncle and a technophobic support staff,but have personaly won over one person [AKA dad] who is absolutely useless with computers and who isnt very confident with them-had managed to get him around to the idea by installing several linux distros on a virtual machine for him,if he screws them up it doesnt matter.
it gave him some confidence to agree to having linux installed on his hard drive-which did for him,and the only whinge that get is him saying it sometimes boots into windows when he is choosing the distro on the GRUB list,the pillock doesnt seem to understand he cant spend half his life looking for the arrow and enter keys as it will automaticaly boot the first one on the list after a certain time,but oh no its not his fault,its linuxes.

PrzemoF

Real life example: a windows 2000 user, doesn't want to switch because he's familiar with what he has. The PC is dying, so he'll be forced to get a new one: it will be windows 7 or linux box. I'm working on him to get a linux box because he'll have to learn how to use the new system anyway, and the advantage of linux is obvious.

From my experience windows users think that is normal to do reboots if you install something, to keep anti-(virus, scam, trojan, whatever) running, to do defrag all the time, to see that the PC is slowing down after being on for 20 hours. It's all 100% normal for them, so why bother with switching?

Aaah, and there is always the essential piece of software that doesn't run under linux - I heard that a few days ago from a person that uses Opera for browsing/emails and M$ Word for writing text!

Stark

PrzemoF wrote: »

Aaah, and there is always the essential piece of software that doesn't run under linux - I heard that a few days ago from a person that uses Opera for browsing/emails and M$ Word for writing text!

Opera runs on Linux.

Tom Dunne

I think for run-of-the-mill stuff, Linux is perfect. Last year, I set the mother-in-law's computer office computer up running Ubuntu. She now scans/prints/e-mails without problems or fears of virus.

For standard kind of stuff, it's ideal.

For me, however, I spent over a month trying to get Ubuntu onto Active Directory so I could print to the networked printer. In the end, I just gave up in frustration.

It's issues like these that prevent me from using Linux all the time.

syklops

Part of it is ignorance. People not realising how much it has matured.

Like yesterday, I'm getting a friend of mine into Linux and gave him a LiveCD with Fedora on it and he said "I'll wait til my laptop is back to install it", and I suggested he use his wifes computer and he said "No, well, its a mac, and I dont want to change anything on her computer" and I said, "Well it wont change anything on it, its a Live CD". CUe blank face. I could tell he wasnt getting me. Again he says "Yeah but its a Mac so I wouldnt be sure about partitioning."

So I explain about what LiveCDs are. He didnt think it was possible(and he is a programmer!)

So a bit of ignorance mixed with a bit of apathy is the answer to your question OP.

aquascrotum

IMO you still need to have an element of geekness to get linux to work, even in its most userfriendly forms (Ubuntu etc).

My folks computer came with Windows Vista, predictably slowed down to the point that booting up was a 10 min operation, so I suggested Ubuntu (because it was free and all they want is browser / email / word processing and print photos).

All went well, and continues to do so (well, relatively well) - but there are a lot of pitfalls that to an IT geek are a challenge for the craic, but to a 55yr old who just wants to print a photo are a disaster.

In the last few months:

- Upgrade to Ocelot brought Unity (which they did not like) - have them using it now with Gnome3 as a backup plan.
- Upgrade to Ocelot changed CuPS which killed printer support for their Lexmark (permanently)
- Loss of Sun Java JRE killed their internet banking (OpenJDK wouldnt work with the banks system)
- Bought a new Epson printer (on my advice due to Linux compatibility). Still turned into a disaster to install - when it was detected bu Ubuntu it ran an autoinstall which continually failed. But when I arrived home 2 weeks later and went to "add printer" it picked it up and flew through hunky dory.
- Compatibility between LibreOffice and Word / Excel - continuous problems and crashes here.

Everything can be generally made to work - however it (in my experience) is never as easy as it could be. The power of the terminal is great to someone who is happy to use it, but a user friendly graphic front end to change the simple stuff is needed if they are looking for mass appeal.

The average user cares not a jot for adding repos, commandline in the terminal, what is free/nonfree or opensource, what the hell medibuntu is and why do I need it do something as basic as open a video after a clean install, what a dependant application is, or trying to make out what some of the cryptic error messages that come up relate to, etc etc.

PrzemoF

Stark wrote: »

Opera runs on Linux.

Yes, and LibreOffice is 1:1 replacement for MS Office. I meant that even people using very standard applications are using that silly argument about "essential application"

Moonbeam

It is what they know and what they have in the office.

We have proven that if you hand someone with no idea a linux machine ,i is jsut as hard to use as windows,also if there are only certain apps they use eg firefox,thunderbird and open office then you can change the os and they don't even notice.

Adyx

PrzemoF wrote: »

Real life example: a windows 2000 user, doesn't want to switch because he's familiar with what he has. The PC is dying, so he'll be forced to get a new one: it will be windows 7 or linux box. I'm working on him to get a linux box because he'll have to learn how to use the new system anyway, and the advantage of linux is obvious.

From my experience windows users think that is normal to do reboots if you install something, to keep anti-(virus, scam, trojan, whatever) running, to do defrag all the time, to see that the PC is slowing down after being on for 20 hours. It's all 100% normal for them, so why bother with switching?

Aaah, and there is always the essential piece of software that doesn't run under linux - I heard that a few days ago from a person that uses Opera for browsing/emails and M$ Word for writing text!

Apart from the Anti-Virus, none of that is normal.

There are two reasons I won't use Linux for day to day use. It can't do everything I want and the supposedly best distro for new users to switch to from Windows, Mint doesn't have a live cd that will work with my computer.

mach1982

aquascrotum wrote: »

IMO you still need to have an element of geekness to get linux to work, even in its most userfriendly forms (Ubuntu etc).

My folks computer came with Windows Vista, predictably slowed down to the point that booting up was a 10 min operation, so I suggested Ubuntu (because it was free and all they want is browser / email / word processing and print photos).

All went well, and continues to do so (well, relatively well) - but there are a lot of pitfalls that to an IT geek are a challenge for the craic, but to a 55yr old who just wants to print a photo are a disaster.

In the last few months:

- Upgrade to Ocelot brought Unity (which they did not like) - have them using it now with Gnome3 as a backup plan.
- Upgrade to Ocelot changed CuPS which killed printer support for their Lexmark (permanently)
- Loss of Sun Java JRE killed their internet banking (OpenJDK wouldnt work with the banks system)
- Bought a new Epson printer (on my advice due to Linux compatibility). Still turned into a disaster to install - when it was detected bu Ubuntu it ran an autoinstall which continually failed. But when I arrived home 2 weeks later and went to "add printer" it picked it up and flew through hunky dory.
- Compatibility between LibreOffice and Word / Excel - continuous problems and crashes here.

Everything can be generally made to work - however it (in my experience) is never as easy as it could be. The power of the terminal is great to someone who is happy to use it, but a user friendly graphic front end to change the simple stuff is needed if they are looking for mass appeal.

The average user cares not a jot for adding repos, commandline in the terminal, what is free/nonfree or opensource, what the hell medibuntu is and why do I need it do something as basic as open a video after a clean install, what a dependant application is, or trying to make out what some of the cryptic error messages that come up relate to, etc etc.

Try Xubunt no unity, and you can still user gnome apps , also it foot print is smaller .

syklops

Adyx wrote: »

Apart from the Anti-Virus, none of that is normal.

There are two reasons I won't use Linux for day to day use. It can't do everything I want and the supposedly best distro for new users to switch to from Windows, Mint doesn't have a live cd that will work with my computer.

What can it not do that you need it to do? As for the mint issue, then use something else.

Cormic

I don't think the learning a new OS is a valid argument. The difference between Windows 3.11 and Windows 7 is huge but people have adapted. Also an increasing number of people are very willing to dump Windows and buy an Apple computer so they have to learn OSX.

To me I believe one of the worst problems with Linux is that it can be pretty ugly. The default colour scheme in Ubuntu is awful. I also think the unity desktop is terrible.

Also Linux is seen as geeky and does not have any applications that people are used to. People are used to Windows / MS Office in work or college so insist in them at home too. This is of course changing with Firefox, open office and users using more web based apps like gmail and google docs but it is a long road.

Another factor is availability. People will go to Dell / PC World and buy a computer with Windows. Try buying a Linux box in either of those places! If you cannot then try getting your money back on the unused Windows license. Now of course you can go to specialist sites that will sell you a box with Linux on it but you need to seek them out.

Finally people are really adverse to change. To get my father in law to use Firefox I had to change the icon and shortcut name to IE. He just thought that IE was the Internet and that was that...

Adyx

syklops wrote: »

What can it not do that you need it to do? As for the mint issue, then use something else.

Play all the games I want.

I also use Reaper and Ableton Live a lot. As for using another distro, I'd only be dual booting anyway so why bother? Windows does everything I want, performance is great and I can count on one hand the number of issues I've encountered with this version. Don't get me wrong, Windows is far from perfect and I think Linux is fantastic but it's not suitable for my needs.

Next time a family member fcuks up the PC I put together for them, they're getting Linux though.

b.harte

When I bought this laptop, (Acer 5810T) about a year ago I made the decision to do a full install of mint10, I had been dual booting for a few years but never got everything "just right".
I did a bit of research on what laptops were best for compatibility issues and picked accordingly.
I did the original install using the normal mint distribution and to be fair had no problems, everything work pretty well straight away, a few small problems with the track freezing and I couldn't get the built-in mic to work.
The trackpad annoyed me so a bit of a google and the reports suggested the stable LMDE version didn't suffer with it.
I did a full clean install of LMDE and when everything was working I turned off all updates and deleted the testing repositories from the list.
I still can't get the built-in mic to work but a 6euro mic solved that.
My wife, who is a complete computer novice doesn't even notice the difference.
She can watch movies, surf and listen to music, and do some office tasks using Open office.
I think the problem with adapting linux is the haphazard lists of hardware compatibility, it is still sort of hit and miss, the LMDE I'm using now is the best I tried, but as stated when I had a stable working system I stopped all updates.
In my view a lot of the problems with Windows is related to all of the updates, the anti-virus etc is an unfortunate reality for a lot of people, Linux will suffer eventually, not at such a deep level but as the browser functionality changes the plugins needed to fully experience will be the weakest link, either in a vulnerability way, or in a lack of features. The built in security is a bonus but (in much the same way as Vista and 7) constant login to install missing plug-in or codecs will lead to some user removing the secure options all together, or bitch and moan about the constant annoyances.
I even managed to get a canon wireless printer/scanner set up in about 5minutes, with good support on the canon site. No problems with wifi, webcams or anything.
Now for the bad bits, and why non-computer people won't dont bother.
My garmin watch just will not work with linux, I could (and did) go through a long command line method for getting data off the watch, converting it and sending it to the garmin connect server, with some loss of metrics.
No video in with skype sometimes.
The solution? Vbox with XPsp3 (updates off)
An over complicated user interface for managing sound output and the inability to auto switch the sound output to HDMI when the video output is changed.
I'm going to stick with it, I've even set up a few other systems for people I know, for average users a well configured system with updates off is the way to go.

Bertie

Johnboy1951

bpb101 wrote: »

This is just something i cant understand. Why do people not use linux?
yes there no call of duty and other mainstream software but that because of market share.
People who use windows and mac. what wrong with linux that you wont use it.

These days there is very little in linux(depending on the distro) that requires a lot of knowledge about linux or IT
is it just the hassle of formating your new dell or hp.

Give your reason below and ill poll it

There does not need to be anything wrong with Linux for people not to use it.

It the problems they have with their present OS (if any) are not greater than the hassle of learning how to use a new OS then there is no reason for them to change. None at all.

When they change their PC they will not be presented with a choice of OS ..... so why would they even know there is a choice?

One thing I have to comment on though ........... Linux does not equate to Ubuntu and its derivatives, there are many distros out there, and they do not necessarily have the same problems as Ubuntu and its kids.

If the Ubuntu family member does not work for you, try something else .... you might be pleasantly surprised.

Khannie

In answer to the OP: Games and hassle IMO. Linux is poor for games compared to windows. Gaming was my primary use of compute time outside work until a few years ago and until UT2K4 ran on Linux and I played little else, I used windows at home. When I eventually made the switch and ditched windows because I could still game on Linux I never went back, even when UT3 failed to materialise on Linux because the benefits of Linux outweighed being able to game.

Beyond games, I'd have to say: Why bother? Windows is installed. It works. It's stable since Windows 2000 (more or less). Hard to argue the change for the average user any more really. The things that make you choose Linux are probably not important to non-techies.

PrzemoF wrote: »

From my experience windows users think that is normal to do reboots

In general this does my noodle in. It has migrated into the Linux arena where people who should know better reboot boxes in the hope that it will fix things. NYyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Tom Dunne wrote: »

For me, however, I spent over a month trying to get Ubuntu onto Active Directory so I could print to the networked printer. In the end, I just gave up in frustration.

It's issues like these that prevent me from using Linux all the time.

I remember this and the lack of solution. For twice a year scenarios like this (actually, I can't remember the last time I used it) where I can't get something done in Linux for whatever reason I have access to a shared windows VM. Is a VM option for you?

DeadSkin

A combination of boredom, stumbling across this forum & an old laptop[XP installed] that took an age to boot, I installed Ubuntu. Total Linux ignorant, still am to some degree

.
Had a few issues with wireless connection etc at the start, that's where the fun/pain begins......

Laptop now is the main t'internet browsing machine in the house.
Have a second laptop that's used for iphones, mp3 players etc......

-Chris-

For my part - inertia and laziness combined with compatibility.

I don't see the value of going through the learning curve if it will result in as many problems as benefits.

Messerschmitt

This is coming from a guy who dual boots Win 7 and Linux Mint + Ubuntu, and has Puppy Linux on USB for portable uses.

People accuse Windows users of being ignorant and not up to date on how much Linux has matured etc. I think the same can be said for lots of Linux users. All day long you hear them spout out stories of how poor Windows users have to put up with BSOD's and crashes and errors etc. They say to me, "man I can't go near a M$ POS without getting a message saying this program has caused an illegal operation"

Really? Sounds like Windows 95 or something. I've been running my PC for 3 years without one single BSOD. I've had one or two lock ups but that's hardly cause for complaint. The anti-virus is almost invisible, I never even notice it and it hardly puts a dent in performance. Reboots? What's the problem? Nothing really necessitates a reboot on the spot. If ever a program needs a restart to be installed, just leave it until later. If necessary, my box restarts in about 1 minute, get over it, not a big deal. Defragging? Who does that nowadays. Again, we're not on Windows 95 era gear here. Defragging doesn't cause any appreciable performance gain, nor does failure to defrag result in noticeable performance degradation.

Now I think Linux is great, but I've been using computers for years and it isn't as user friendly and painless as Linux users sometimes make it out to be. I get Windows for free through university. Why replace Windows with Linux? There are no proper Linux drivers for my soundcard. I can't play most of my games. Blu Ray support I'm not so sure about, that took a while didn't it? TRIM support for SSDs?

The thing is that most people here probably don't understand just how computer illiterate the average person is. I find Windows so simple, and yet there are people who pay twice what I'm paying, to go buy a Mac (to run MS Word), just because they can't understand Windows. Ubuntu doesn't even support DVD playback out of the box (or it didn't a few months ago), computer illiterate people struggle with that.

The bottom line is, Linux being free is its biggest advantage because Windows is a very capable and useable OS and there is no real need for the average person to change over. Besides, if Linux was installed on retail devices, they probably wouldn't be any cheaper, Dell or Hp or whoever would just make more profit.

Stark

Messerschmitt wrote: »

If necessary, my box restarts in about 1 minute, get over it, not a big deal. Defragging? Who does that nowadays.

Used to take me about 10 minutes before my PC was usable when booting Windows. As in I'd get to the login screen in under a minute, but after logging in, it would be several minutes before the machine was responsive enough to even open a web browser. Linux and Mac by contrast, once I'm logged in, I'm ready to go straight away.

Messerschmitt

Stark wrote: »

Used to take me about 10 minutes before my PC was usable when booting Windows. As in I'd get to the login screen in under a minute, but after logging in, it would be several minutes before the machine was responsive enough to even open a web browser. Linux and Mac by contrast, once I'm logged in, I'm ready to go straight away.

Messerschmitt wrote: »

Really? Sounds like Windows 95 or something.

Windows boots in about 30-40 seconds for me. It's usable almost immediately when I log in. Of course when you let madmen like HP and Adobe run around making bloatware that comes with your printer and such, that can slow things down. Those can be disabled though.

My post may seem very critical or harsh, I really love Linux and what it stands for. One thing I might add is that when the average user goes to install Linux and they see "partitioning" and "risk of data loss, make back ups" and "in case your MBR becomes corrupted and you cannot boot" and "are you sure you want to install Linux here, doing so will erase all disc contents" and stuff like that, it scares them off. That is one reason why people steer clear.

bpb101

Cormic wrote: »

To me I believe one of the worst problems with Linux is that it can be pretty ugly. The default colour scheme in Ubuntu is awful. I also think the unity desktop is terrible.

maybe unity isent that pretty but it is so easy to launch programs.
not that i was hard , but hit the super key and type the first few letters of a program and hit enter and it there.

i know where my programs are , i dont have to look.
in windows 7,vista and xp when you hit start did you really know what programs were locked into the toolbar.

if you have never seen a computer before and you turn on a windows pc and a ubuntu pc which looks easyer
windows with loads of random files and floders around the gaf or your main programs in the unity launcher

if you have a lot of folders and programs on your destop , you can spend a lot of time looking for them

bpb101

i feal that there are a few key programs that people on linux cant do without and that why one of the reason i have a windows (I do realsise this is kinda answering my own question but however )

itunes - was fu*king my windows pc till i removed it but all my friends have ipods and they think it is impossible to use an ipod outside i tunes

steam-hate it but use it everyday
netflixs - however i dont use it.
these is what i belive are holding it back a bit

ntlbell

I think it simply boils down to not giving a hoot. Windows does pretty much everything "joe user" wants.

When something does everything you need and does it in your eyes well you have no need or reason to go seek an alternative.

Plus an OAP who wants to play yahoo bingo isn't going to spend a few months in a man page to figure out how when her windows 7 laptop/pc does exactly what she wants with little or no hassle.

pickarooney

aquascrotum wrote: »

IMO you still need to have an element of geekness to get linux to work, even in its most userfriendly forms (Ubuntu etc).

My folks computer came with Windows Vista, predictably slowed down to the point that booting up was a 10 min operation, so I suggested Ubuntu (because it was free and all they want is browser / email / word processing and print photos).

All went well, and continues to do so (well, relatively well) - but there are a lot of pitfalls that to an IT geek are a challenge for the craic, but to a 55yr old who just wants to print a photo are a disaster.

In the last few months:

- Upgrade to Ocelot brought Unity (which they did not like) - have them using it now with Gnome3 as a backup plan.
- Upgrade to Ocelot changed CuPS which killed printer support for their Lexmark (permanently)
- Loss of Sun Java JRE killed their internet banking (OpenJDK wouldnt work with the banks system)
- Bought a new Epson printer (on my advice due to Linux compatibility). Still turned into a disaster to install - when it was detected bu Ubuntu it ran an autoinstall which continually failed. But when I arrived home 2 weeks later and went to "add printer" it picked it up and flew through hunky dory.
- Compatibility between LibreOffice and Word / Excel - continuous problems and crashes here.

Everything can be generally made to work - however it (in my experience) is never as easy as it could be. The power of the terminal is great to someone who is happy to use it, but a user friendly graphic front end to change the simple stuff is needed if they are looking for mass appeal.

The average user cares not a jot for adding repos, commandline in the terminal, what is free/nonfree or opensource, what the hell medibuntu is and why do I need it do something as basic as open a video after a clean install, what a dependant application is, or trying to make out what some of the cryptic error messages that come up relate to, etc etc.

I'm curious as to why they updated to Ocelot. I bet it was you that did it and they hated you for weeks after

Cormic

bpb101 wrote: »

maybe unity isent that pretty but it is so easy to launch programs.
not that i was hard , but hit the super key and type the first few letters of a program and hit enter and it there.

i know where my programs are , i dont have to look.
in windows 7,vista and xp when you hit start did you really know what programs were locked into the toolbar.

if you have never seen a computer before and you turn on a windows pc and a ubuntu pc which looks easyer
windows with loads of random files and floders around the gaf or your main programs in the unity launcher

if you have a lot of folders and programs on your destop , you can spend a lot of time looking for them

You do have a point there and you can see that with Windows 7, MS tried to integrate that kind of functionalilty.

But my point is still valid. The default colours in Ubuntu in particular are terrible and I believe that it is turning a lot of people off it.

aquascrotum

pickarooney wrote: »

I'm curious as to why they updated to Ocelot. I bet it was you that did it and they hated you for weeks after

Nail on head...in fairness they were on the old LTS and the software update on it had corrupted for some reason, so I had to clean install and it made sense to go for the latest and greatest.

I like my Ubuntu but only because I half enjoy the challenge of getting the thing to work and keeping tabs on the latest upstream developments. I still use Win7 99% of the time and would never be reliant on linux.

Tree

There are some windows programmes that have no real comparably easy/detailed/any equivalent on linux (someone remind me to install a windows vm so i can install them sometime instead of using the college computers). So I use the windows boxes in the lab, even though i now find windows painful to use, the programmes are essential to my work.

Other than that, i think many people are unwilling to learn, and to set up linux, you really need a buddy system where someone gets you up and running, and after a few months you can help someone else. That said, we have my mammy running on some ubuntu LTS and she's grand, but she's not a gamer and once i set libre office to default save in MS formats, it's perfect for her.

Groinshot

A few reasons.
1) Visual Studio - College.
2) Xcode - iOS development
3) MS office - I really really cannot stand OpenOffice. I'd rather pay for the licence. (especially as I get it for free as a student)

Most importantly: I have a habit of breaking *nix, because I'm always tempted to go playing with thngs I shouldn't play with, and if I used it as my main OS, I'd be left hanging when I broke it

d'Oracle

If one buys a mac or a PC one gets iOS or Windows with it.

If one is not directly interested in trying Linux (and the vast majority won't want to just for the sake of it) they will have no reason to change OS.

I changed because I couldn't afford a new copy of windows.
I have enjoyed the change, but the reality is that there is no reason for most people to even think of Linux. The iOS or Windows installed on their machine probably does what they want adequately.

TBH I'm not sure why the question has even been asked.
I maintain that the iPad is one of the greatest inventions of recent years because it basically gives people a largely dumb piece of equipment which can easily handle all the simple ubiquitous computer tasks most users would want to do. Its OS is largely a vector, the people who it serves best will never question the OS in any shape, form or fashion.

Infact a lot of people who do stuff which is technically far in excess of those tasks that most people do will STILL not give a monkeys what an OS is like as long as it can open the software they want in a couple of clicks.

I like Linux, or I suppose Ubuntu Lucid, for reasons that most the vast majority of iOS and Windows users would not even be arsed understanding let alone considering.

I dislike it for a number of reasons too and tbh if I got a new computer tomorrow, I would probably put together some sort of dual-boot with windows 7 because dammit videogames.