Why Linux Sucks

#21

There is a common misconception that ‘regular’ users drive adoption of such platforms. Really, it is what is usable in work and businesses what drives adoption. Of course, many are regular users, but what people use at home isn’t always a way to gain market share.

You are right, many regular users could get on perfectly fine with Ubuntu. Now more than ever since so many people just use computers for the web. For Linux to get in on business for (for employees desktops) they need those specific examples of applications, not the alternatives, because the transition process probably isn’t worth it for them, and often enough those alternatives don’t addess their needs well enough. If Linux could get in on desktop computers in businesses, then it creates a snowball effect which improves the position of the platform due to that new demand.

People can say they don’t need that, people are happy with Linux as it is, as a niche platform. But it’d be best for the industry, I think, if Linux was as good for all these different things so that we had a real alternative and the open nature of Linux would mean that it wouldn’t simply just a third player (or second, because if Linux did this, it’d easily take over OSX in market share) in the game, there would be an extra layer of competition hopefully driving innovation.

#22

I’d be interested to know what you think makes Linux a “niche platform” that isn’t viable in “businesses” - I think it’s mostly a social thing rather than any technical capability. After all, where I work, we run Linux desktops. We are Linux people, so that’s not surprising, but surely that means it’s just the fact that most businesses have Windows people, rather than anything Linux can or can’t do?

To be honest, most businesses don’t even have good Windows people either, so it seems like it shouldn’t be hard to break that :stuck_out_tongue:

#23

I pretty much agree with tL on businesses, in my experience with a few businesses I did/do IT work for, they generally have a proprietary program they have paid for or pay for on a yearly basis or something, that has all of their data in it and all of their employee’s are trained to work in it. This makes it impossible to transition if there is no alternative, and even if there is, the actual transition is still hard because all of their data needs ‘converted’ and their employees re-trained.

One example is a Church I work for, they use this:
http://www.parishdata.com/churchoffice (and a few other programs from there, all that interface with each other)
I did convert their file server from Windows XP to Linux, but as far as there desktops go that is a deal breaker. I am patiently waiting, hoping for the day they get tired of PDS, when I’ll swoop in with Linux, but that might be a long time coming.

The other problem I see is when businesses choose windows for their computers, microsoft is ready for a full service contract, complete with integration and communication features such as SharePoint and such, and from their leaked communication it is clear they are even willing to take a loss on this to beat out Linux. Are there any places that provide the same level of support for Linux on the desktop? (redhat comes to mind, but I think they only support servers, not desktops?)

I think it’s perfectly viable in business, and a better solution than windows regardless, there are just some things that can’t be overcome at the moment with some setups. I think in the nearish future that will probably change.

#24

Nope, Redhat support desktops, as do Canonical for Ubuntu.

#25

[quote=“Moparisthebest, post:20, topic:442723”][quote author=eczema3 link=topic=545406.msg4001779#msg4001779 date=1338122811]

Really? It’s the other way around for me, I don’t need to install any drivers on windows 7 and it works fine, linux I have to fuck around with proprietary bullshit for 3 hours and even then it still doesn’t work.
[/quote]
And when was the last time you tried that and with what distro? Chances are, if you install Ubuntu (or Kubuntu, same thing) everything will ‘just work’ no problem.[/quote]
I’ve always used Ubuntu, and it’s always sucked. The only time I ever touch it now is to recover something from a windows installation I managed to break.

#26

There is another more important reason why Linux sucks.

Women make up 51 percent of the population, and because of this, Linux should be banned in government. Operating Systems like Linux discriminate against women because of a built in difficulty compared with Windows and Apple’s OS X.

Women pay taxes, and therefore shouldn’t be discriminated against in getting employment with government agencies. If these agencies had used Windows or OS X, more women would be able to persue dreams of a full time job in government.

Linux is by its nature a man’s domain. Women are designed to use social interaction and emotions to deal with complex tasks, things the command line are ill suited.
OS X, and Windows have friendly and female-intuitive designs that take into account a woman’s understanding of objects, ie. folders, desktops, Clippy, the XP search dog. These help women operate the computer by giving her a relationship with these icons, and helpful animated pets. It makes a woman feel at home with her computer by allowing her to relate to it.

Linux, on the other hand is designed for command line and programming. Sure, it may have a fugly GUI to hide its true being, but to get any serious work done you must know a bunch of arcane commands with hundreds of options that change with every command. Something like this: chmod a+rwx.
Only engineers can understand this. And most engineers are still men.

This puts the female population at a great disadvantage when applying for work. Men know this, and that’s why they deliberately try to install linux in the workplace. How would women’s groups react when they read the studies that are being commissioned by industry on this very subject? Surely, women, when they learn of this, will outvote men and ban linux from the government.

#27

[quote=“c|p, post:26, topic:442723”]There is another more important reason why Linux sucks.

Women make up 51 percent of the population, and because of this, Linux should be banned in government. Operating Systems like Linux discriminate against women because of a built in difficulty compared with Windows and Apple’s OS X.

Women pay taxes, and therefore shouldn’t be discriminated against in getting employment with government agencies. If these agencies had used Windows or OS X, more women would be able to persue dreams of a full time job in government.

Linux is by its nature a man’s domain. Women are designed to use social interaction and emotions to deal with complex tasks, things the command line are ill suited.
OS X, and Windows have friendly and female-intuitive designs that take into account a woman’s understanding of objects, ie. folders, desktops, Clippy, the XP search dog. These help women operate the computer by giving her a relationship with these icons, and helpful animated pets. It makes a woman feel at home with her computer by allowing her to relate to it.

Linux, on the other hand is designed for command line and programming. Sure, it may have a fugly GUI to hide its true being, but to get any serious work done you must know a bunch of arcane commands with hundreds of options that change with every command. Something like this: chmod a+rwx.
Only engineers can understand this. And most engineers are still men.

This puts the female population at a great disadvantage when applying for work. Men know this, and that’s why they deliberately try to install linux in the workplace. How would women’s groups react when they read the studies that are being commissioned by industry on this very subject? Surely, women, when they learn of this, will outvote men and ban linux from the government.[/quote]rofl

#28

About the ‘beefy miracle’

It’s actually a good marketing attempt to name yourself after a hot dog, if you think about it that review from Cnet would drive more attention to your distro and people would get more involved and eventually try it because it’s a name that stuck in there head, I don’t like this guy.

#29

Beefy Miracle also had history and meant something to some people in the Redhat/Fedora community. It wasn’t entirely random.

#30

I thought it was pretty fun, true though in a way, because of the driver issues and the updates that completely revamp the system and incapability issues, they just released 12.10 ubuntu, yet I have an ubuntu partition on my laptop, there is no way I can use it, it’s awfully buggy and I’ve tried many times to fix it, but it won’t recognize a problem. This is the same for my secondary desktop as well, I refuse to move any farther than 10.04 because of it just crapping out. So right now I am in the middle of pulling data then reformatting everything.

Obviously though, Linux (I personally like Debian-Ubuntu types) is a superior operating system and I completely love the community that is involved with it. The fact is because it is open/free sourced software (which is great) the work force won’t be what it would be for a major company, in some ways that is good, in some ways it hinders. You don’t want distros becoming large cooperation because then it would be about marketing and user friendly software, I feel ubuntu has turned into this over the years. On the other hand, more money = work force, the more money, they more people, the easier it is to fix problems and make software.

but yeah, gr8 video

#31

Canonical and Redhat are large corporations.

#32

Yes, they would be considered large, I think I meant mainstream. Redhat I would very well consider a large company, but Canonical is still small my father is vice president for a company, they have more people in one factory than the whole canonical team.

#33

there’s a big fucking difference between a software company and a factory

ps, foxconn has about 24 times the amount of employees google has not to mention about 3x the revenue but only about a quarter of net profit, amount of employees and revenue don’t mean squat

#34

[quote=“Niall, post:33, topic:442723”]there’s a big fucking difference between a software company and a factory

ps, foxconn has about 24 times the amount of employees google has not to mention about 3x the revenue but only about a quarter of net profit, amount of employees and revenue don’t mean squat[/quote]
I would love to hear them, please do tell me more. A company is a company, a corporation is a corporation. It doesn’t matter if they manually produce products or makes software. Besides the product that they put out, there really isn’t a difference… yet still so hostile, even with the no posts, I wonder why everyone left this shithole.
foxxcon started in Taiwan, so no shit they’re going to have more employees. Canonical is small.

#35

people leave this ‘shithole’ because they make no fucking sense and end up looking like retards, redhat and canonical are large corporations and you disputed that with, and I quote, “they have more people in one factory than the whole canonical team.”, I replied with the facts and you came back with “foxxcon started in Taiwan, so no shit they’re going to have more employees.”

so by your logic canonical are small because your fathers factory have more workers, but when foxconn have more employers than google despite being a smaller company that’s “no shit”? and then you end it by reaffirming that canonical is small? by what fucking metric? because your first freaking post used # of employees as a metric now you’re just pulling it out your ass

#36

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfLqLK7VdQY[/youtube]

Guess nobody saw the “sequel” to the video.

#37

Some interesting points are raised here, in particular is the issue with package management; due to the co-existing systems of package management there is a lot of duplication this time could be invested in solving other issues. Device drivers really aren’t the fault of linux, (or I suppose they’re due to it’s lack of market share and the result of companies not wanting to write software for the platform as they will receive no money in return). Really the issue with linux on the desktop (because the problem here is the desktop it makes an excellent server platform) is the lack of support from software companies.