In brief,
#1 Installing Apps is a painful experience for the average Joe
#2 Sound Sharing is screwed up
# 3 Lack of device drivers, games and applications
#4 It is free. But so is a pirated copy of Windows.
#5 Where to Begin? How to Begin?
#6 No business model
Now, let’s go through the list. It is rather long. So, please be patient.
#1 Installing Apps is a painful experience for the average Joe
One sentence can sum up this problem. Flash player, the most essential web plugin, has a text-based terminal installation involving commands like sudo and sh !!!! This simply is too tough for Mr.Joe.
Solution: I am not aware of the technical intricacies but is creating a graphical installer all that tough?? If Microsoft can do it, Linux developers can do it too.
#2 Sound Sharing is screwed up
There is an audio mess in Ubuntu with different applications fighting for exclusive access to the sound device. As a result, I can’t pause the song on Amarok and watch Youtube with audio at the same time. Extremely frustrating. The installation of video and audio plugins is also complicated and once again, requires the terminal.
Solution: Same as above
# 3 Lack of device drivers, games and applications
The lack of device drivers especially wireless drivers is major hurdle in configuring an Ubuntu installation. Other ubuntu problems can be solved by googling them. But if I had no Internet in the first place, what would I do? Personally, I used two computers to install my wireless card. It is a pain in the a**. About the lack of applications, Adobe Photoshop is the most critical application that is not supported on Linux. Gimp is not exactly an alternative because (admit it) it just isn’t good enough. I am excited about Pixel, a new product that seems to be at least in the same league as Photoshop. It is in its sixth beta version currently and is expected to be released before the end of this year. It costs only $79 (compared to Photoshop; $899). Give it a try. As for the lack of games, WINE is the best option currently.
Solution: Linux Developers should write more drivers for linux. This has been promised in the next release.The lack of games and applications is a catch-22 or chicken-egg situation whatever you want to call it. Only if there are more apps and games on Linux, will more people move to it and only if there are more Linux users,will companies start making software and games for linux. Someone has to take the first step. Why not you?
picture created using Pixel
#4 It is free. But so is a pirated copy of Windows.
I am not sure of the situation in the West. But in most parts of Asia, pirated copies of windows are very easily available and they only cost as much as a dollar. In fact, the Indonesian Government was found to be using pirated windows. On the Internet also, pirated copies of windows can be downloaded easily. Hence, many people would prefer the more popular windows over linux. These people do not appreciate the true value of free software.
Solution: Ask Mr.Bill Gates to please defend his software against piracy. Vista is expected to have better anti-piracy mechanism. Hopefully, soon, free software will be appreciated.
#5 Where to Begin? How to Begin?
There is no tutorial or walk through just after the installation of Ubuntu. Solving problems encountered during the installation of Ubuntu is also slow as there is no live support (there might be but it is not advertised to the user).
Solution: Though the interface is very intuitive, Ubuntu still needs an interactive starter tutorial. An active support channel (maybe IRC or IM) should also be available so that new Ubuntu users can solve their problems immediately without having to post on a forum. I am sure a lot of users would be willing to chat on the channel when they have free time.
#6 No business model
Come on guys, as much as we like open source, it is never going to feed your children with its current business model. Ubuntu and open source in general needs a better business model. You may talk about how rich Novell is but still, it ain’t as rich as Microsoft. More money means more developers and better software. Until now, Ubuntu has been developed due to the goodwill of Mark Shuttleworth and his company. We must show our gratitude but one man cannot support this increasingly bigger project forever.
Solution: I am thinking of the day, when the basic version of linux will be free but everyone could have a customizable version of linux adapted to his/her personal needs for less than what Windows or OS X costs today. Maybe, one day, the OS itself would be smart enough to adapt itself. Of course, there are a million other possible business models.
Anyway, there is a bright future ahead for Linux. In the near future, Microsoft’ Windows Vista could fail terribly and Linux could be pushed to the forefront or Google could decide to openly support and encourage Ubuntu (this seems likely; it just hosted the Ubuntu developer meet last week).
9 Comments
November 12, 2006 at 2:47 am
I think the first reason is the main problem. There really is no standard for software developers to create a package file of some format that will install under all systems.
I think the .deb system has potential, though. And so got .rpm. But it need to be only RPM or only DEB. Not both as this is confusing to users and harder to maintain for small scale software producers.
November 12, 2006 at 5:02 am
I have written about #1 here:
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/16284/A-Call-to-Distros-Give-Users-What-They-Want
and here is the answer I got from a Fedora kernel developer (scroll down to the discussion):
http://kernelslacker.livejournal.com/62413.html
They just don’t get it.
November 12, 2006 at 6:58 am
“sound sharing” is a problem with Ubuntu. my good friend trigger has complained about this too. on my SLED 10 and on a KDE environment, i almost never have a problem about this. and i don’t even have to do anything to configure it.
i can turn down the volume of amarok,but still have it playing, while i’m talking with someone on skype.
try using a wrapper, like artdsp. edit your menu or whatever it is you use to launch KDE apps that will use sound and change it to:
“artsdsp ”
without the quotes of course. where is the name of the application without the characters. this was what i did to my friend’s ubuntu and he could like play amarok and talk on skype without sound conflicts anymore.
November 12, 2006 at 7:03 am
[...] Just tonight, while browsing Digg, I found two separate recent blog posts of users (here and here) discussing exactly that problem: the difficulty of installing must-have proprietary software (e.g. Flash). [...]
November 23, 2006 at 7:10 pm
I AGREE !!!!!!!!!!!!1 LINUX IN NOT FOR THE “AVERAGE JOE” !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT IS NOT USER FRIENDLY. THE MEDIA SECTION LEAVES MUCH TO BE DESIRED !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 23, 2006 at 7:24 pm
Linux developers MUST understand that in order for an Operating System to gain international appeal, it MUST BE USER FRIENDLY !! I do not like IE, but I think the reason why is has a larger share of the market is because its Operating System is user friendly.
Linux must also think of children who may want to study and develop their computer skills. As one writer said: LinuX is not for the “Average Joe” !!! HE IS SO RIGHT !!!!
June 23, 2008 at 11:54 pm
The whole stuff is outdated. Lot’s of changes have been done to Ubuntu 8.04 and more to come I believe.
September 15, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Yeah, well it isn’t Linux’s fault. It’s the endless number of corporations who won’t realise drivers for their products or port their programs to Linux, leaving volunteers around the world to try and guess. Cut these people some slack. They make the distributions out of their own good will. You should be pointing your fingers at the establishment.
Now you see here’s the other problem. Linux wasn’t originally designed for the masses. The average joe certainly doesn’t go out of their way to find out what different type of OS they can use. Linux distributions, much like Unix (i.e Apple Macs) are only ever going to attract a certain clique. The average joe is too damn ignorant to want to learn a different way of computing.
People have freedom of choice, but it would be nice if all the game developers, internet multimedia providers, hardware developers would give Linux a chance.
December 31, 2008 at 3:33 am
Very impressed with Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex so far. I stuck it on my laptop 2 days ago. The only driver that didn’t work was the wireless (broadcom). I tried googling my way out of it – but the solutions didn’t work. Ubuntu terminal didn’t like some of the commands recommended (ndiswrapper wasn’t recognised). I got round the problem by fitting an Intel wireless adapter. Other than that I have found most answers to problems on forums. I’m really impressed by the fact that it just works more or less straight away – when you think of all the drivers needed to run a laptop. It can only get better with time. It’s easy to forget this isn’t a corporate OS – it’s written by people who make money from other sources, ie tech support.