Ubuntu Bug #1 Finally Closed

[Wanderer]

In any case, while Windows is proprietory I certainly don't feel locked down by it - I can buy / download software from multiple vendors to help me do what I want to do, with Windows just sitting in the background giving me an easy way to launch and use them. How that's different from Ubuntu

The difference is that if you buy a new PC then you pay for a Windows license, even if you don't want windows on it.

Try buying a new PC and telling them you don't want Windows and can you have a refund of the licence fee. They will say no. You are locked into paying the Microsoft tax on a new PC.

[OwlHoot]

Linux PCs will never be more than a niche market for geeks.

If this linux/unix/.. etc etc v Windows debate continues until the last star falls from the Heavens, then linux will still have a mere tiny fraction of the market.

The basic problem is that linux nerds are incapable of grasping that normal people, the vast majority of the population, have neither the interest nor in most cases the ability to read reams of manuals and man pages and memorize more cryptic and obscure commands and their options than there are Chinese characters.

Nor do most people care to risk choosing one of the plethora of incompatible and ever changing and dying flavours of Unix, whose ancestry and likely descendents make the Egyptian Pharoahs' family tree over 5000 years and 20 dynasties look simple by comparison.

In short, linux and its ilk appeals mainly to people with a photographic memory and in most cases way out on the autistic spectrum.

Trouble is I hate Windows too!

[Ticktock]

The difference is that if you buy a new PC then you pay for a Windows license, even if you don't want windows on it.

Try buying a new PC and telling them you don't want Windows and can you have a refund of the licence fee. They will say no. You are locked into paying the Microsoft tax on a new PC.

Again, a slight bit of bollocks, although widely thought to be true. There was a movement about 5 years ago where people were refunding their licence, and it was accepted by at least one major PC manufacturer. So actually, complete bollocks - ask and you shall receive. People just don't ask as much as they should if they really don't want it. In any case, that's the hardware manufacturers bundling it, not Windows locking you in to anything, so shifting the argument slightly.

I know it used to be the case, but you could also buy PCs with Ubuntu instead of Windows if you wanted. You didn't get a much cheaper price, as MS used to subsidise the cost of the hardware (uncompetitive, maybe, but that's not locking you in).

Doesn't really apply to me anyway - I build my own PCs. I choose to install Windows anyway, as I tried Ubuntu and found I'd rather use the Windows licences I got when an old permie employer gave me top tier MSDN access. That way I got an OS that actually ran the software I wanted / needed to use. In the future, when I run out of keys for Win 7 (or decide I want Win 8, 9, 10 or whatever) I'll just buy a copy, or a Technet sub, or MSDN sub.

[SueEllen]

Linux PCs will never be more than a niche market for geeks.

If this linux/unix/.. etc etc v Windows debate continues until the last star falls from the Heavens, then linux will still have a mere tiny fraction of the market.

The basic problem is that linux nerds are incapable of grasping that normal people, the vast majority of the population, have neither the interest nor in most cases the ability to read reams of manuals and man pages and memorize more cryptic and obscure commands and their options than there are Chinese characters.

Nor do most people care to risk choosing one of the plethora of incompatible and ever changing and dying flavours of Unix, whose ancestry and likely descendents make the Egyptian Pharoahs' family tree over 5000 years and 20 dynasties look simple by comparison.

In short, linux and its ilk appeals mainly to people with a photographic memory and in most cases way out on the autistic spectrum.

Trouble is I hate Windows too!

Get a mac then.

BTW you just need to be able to use Google though I've not had to configure any of my laptops to use linux for years.

[SueEllen]

I'm staggered by the ignorance of that statement.

MS were told to put an (extremely annoying) advert for other browsers into Windows. They never "locked you into" using IE, indeed the first thing many people would do is download and install a different browser. This isn't iOS you know; MS have never tried to in any way restrict what you can install (until Windows 8 apps anyway, but there they're very much following the path established by Apple).

MS have been in trouble with the EU commission more than once.

In 98 and XP IE was embedded in the OS unlike 95 and earlier versions. When you did certain operations IE would open automatically even though you may have had FF or Opera installed.

With 7, which you are talking about, they gave you a pop-up to tell you about other browsers. MS got in trouble more recently with the EU Commission for removing this with a service pack however IE isn't so tightly embedded in the OS. If I want to open a HTML file I can now set it up to use my choice of browser and it will not default to IE.

Ubuntu and FF are different companies plus are only bit players in the market so aren't anti-competitive.

[SueEllen]

The difference is that if you buy a new PC then you pay for a Windows license, even if you don't want windows on it.

Try buying a new PC and telling them you don't want Windows and can you have a refund of the licence fee. They will say no. You are locked into paying the Microsoft tax on a new PC.

If you brought a discount PC which was ready to deliver then they would say "No". And still do as the discount is always more than the cost of the OS.

If you configured your PC and brought it from the likes of Dell or the many PC makers that have gone bust the Windows OS cost extra.

The main problem with buying it from one of the larger PC makers was that if you said you didn't want Windows they thought you were going to put a pirate version on and would hassle you about this.

The smaller PC makers never presumed this so you could and can buy a PC very easily with no OS.

[Cliphead]

Linux PCs will never be more than a niche market for geeks.

Have you looked at any recent desktop Linux distro's? Mint comes to mind with whatever GUI you prefer, currently I have KDE installed and slick it is but the real test is how intuitive the interface is. One of my sister's who is not computer savvy bought a laptop pre-installed with Windows 8 needless to say I got a call for help as she 'couldn't work it'. She came over with it and looked at the PC running Linux, without any instruction I let her loose on it and in no time she had a browser up, found other apps including email. She left that day with Mint installed replacing Win 8.

What does the average user need from an OS? Surf the internet, email, some sort of chat app, mess with documents (without MS Office), whatever. Right out of the box most current Linux distro's will do that and all of them are way more intuitive than the car crash that is Win 8.

[VectraMan]

I know it used to be the case, but you could also buy PCs with Ubuntu instead of Windows if you wanted. You didn't get a much cheaper price, as MS used to subsidise the cost of the hardware (uncompetitive, maybe, but that's not locking you in).

Dell were selling PCs and laptops with Ubuntu 5 or 6 years ago. It's a question of volume production; PCs are so cheap because they can bash out identical machines in their 1000s. Having to deal with the 0.01% of users that want something other than Windows pushes the overall price up, and you don't have to be a business genius to work out it isn't worth the effort. It isn't as black and white as a "Microsoft tax".

At the end of the day, if there were a demand for Linux PCs from the major manufacturers, there'd be a supply.

[Bunk]

Have you looked at any recent desktop Linux distro's? Mint comes to mind with whatever GUI you prefer, currently I have KDE installed and slick it is but the real test is how intuitive the interface is. One of my sister's who is not computer savvy bought a laptop pre-installed with Windows 8 needless to say I got a call for help as she 'couldn't work it'. She came over with it and looked at the PC running Linux, without any instruction I let her loose on it and in no time she had a browser up, found other apps including email. She left that day with Mint installed replacing Win 8.

What does the average user need from an OS? Surf the internet, email, some sort of chat app, mess with documents (without MS Office), whatever. Right out of the box most current Linux distro's will do that and all of them are way more intuitive than the car crash that is Win 8.

Most of the time now, that's true, but the times when they need to do something a little different, with Windows it's still GUI based but in Linux, you still too often you find yourself being told to open up a terminal and type "sudo vi something.conf" and then press I to switch to insert mode, and blah blah blah. Most normal people have lost the will to live by now, and I know how they feel.

[OwlHoot]

Most of the time now, that's true, but the times when they need to do something a little different, with Windows it's still GUI based but in Linux, you still too often you find yourself being told to open up a terminal and type "sudo vi something.conf" and then press I to switch to insert mode, and blah blah blah. Most normal people have lost the will to live by now, and I know how they feel.

WHS, and the conf files and suchlike are scattered around all over the place, in /etc, /var, /usr, /lib, etc etc, with apparently little rhyme or reason, and that's where the photographic memory comes in handy.

Cliphead has a point, but linux would be a lot easier if the antiquated man system could be (a) made much more search-friendly, (b) have a thematic/topic aspect added, so one could display summaries such as "man usb", and (c) more "graduated" in detail, so that by default "man {command}" would display a brief summary and the most commonly used options.

As it is, running man on any commands almost invariably displays a vast list of options most of which one hardly ever needs and which completely obscure the important ones!