You're quite right. Linux is too good for the average person.

We had OpenOffice at the last place, it was frustrating at times. Especially when reformatting a 500 page document. Going through, setting title styles, inserting tables etc. after around 50 pages or so, it would still apply the style "name" to a paragraph, but would forget to apply the style itself (Font Arial 12, Bold, numbering, 12pt after, 6pt before), it wouldn't show the numbering, text stayed 10pt Times and the paragraph spacing remained unchanged). I needed to save, quit, restart, reload to get the styles working again...

That was with versions 2, 3 and all the updates that came out...

Linux will never be the top OS till it realises that the normal computer user doesn't want to have to get a degree before they use the comp.
Even my nephew who is only 10 will not open the Ubuntu that I have on my spare Laptop. He says he likes windows better as easier to use.

I haven't used Ubuntu for quite some time now as it doesn't do anything better than windows, but is harder to get drivers / software for.
With Vista I didn't need to go searching for drivers they were already available or it found them for me easily.

So you can keep saying Linux is superior if you want, but I fail to see where it is superior.

Be that as it may, I'm struggling here with Windows. OK, it's been locked down by the IT department, but I'm finding operations are taking me forever and some features present a number of decades ago in the *NIX world haven't emerged in Windows which has been fraustrating...
Perhaps if I was given a PowerShell I'd be better off, unfortunatly I'm left with the Explorer GUI, Office and Notepad, hardly the text manipulation tools I'm used to.

You need to complain to Ubuntu, tell them why you won't use their software, I'm sure they know about problems with drivers, but the more they are told the more they will do to sort it I'm sure.

If we all started with Linux, I wonder whether people would find Windows as comfortable. I find it quite restricting as Linux, BSD, UNIX all do things very very similarly. Windows just seems a little bit too dumbed down by default.

That's because dumb people use it!

Oh sure, Ubuntu is harder to use - despite there being little or no need to install drivers, free software that can be installed from one place at the click of a button...

But sure, Windows is the easier to use, even if after a fresh install it's an unusable piece of [LIFTED]. How having to download and install your own drivers and software is somehow easier than having it all done for you is beyond me.

That reminds me of installing Windows Server edition onto a server back at Sun. Windows server doesn't come with SCSI drivers ( ), so I had to install them for the installer to see the disks...But the installer didn't install the drivers into the main OS, so I had to supply the same drivers again!

But the people generally never have to install the main system drivers, just things like printers and scanners, which usually come with a CD with the drivers on.

Their experience of Windows is turning a new PC on for the first time and waiting half an hour for Windows to finish installing itself and the bundled c**pware. They never have to worry about video drivers, ethernet or wi-fi drivers, they are all pre-installed. That is why they have problems with Linxu, if they give it a try.

They also, generally, don't know how to use a computer, they just know the "click-pattern" in XP to accomplish a task. It is one of the reasons Vista struggled.

If you gave them a pre-installed Linux machine, they'd probably get on fine - especially if it had a XP skin! Giving them a live CD and expecting them to install it themselves is only going to be a negative experience for the majority, the same as giving them a raw Windows CD/DVD would be a negative experience.

This is true, up to a point. Of course, anybody who finds a distro like Linux Mint too difficult for them is sub normal.

Unfortunately, Ubuntu appears to have become a virtual synonym for linux among non nerd desktop users. It's a simple fact that Mint is a far more convenient alternative desktop OS for the home user than Ubuntu (which does not 'just work' the way some people wishfully think it does). But as Mint lacks the marketing clout of Ubuntu, we will continue to see this Linux-is-not-as-convenient argument time and again.

If Ubuntu took what mint does and ripped it off (not such a difficult project given that Mint is built on top of Ubuntu anyway), and made an Ubuntu Home Premium edition, things would quickly change.

You've obviously never had to spend a day scrubbing conficker from a network of fully patched Windows systems with up to date, reputable antivirus software.

The reason that Ubuntu does not do what Mint does is that it's legally questionable. A lot of the technologies and codecs that are pre-included with Mint have legal questions over their use with Linux - hence the larger distros. let you take the legal risks yourself.

Indeed, but free as in beer vs as in speech is not a matter for the average user to worry about imo.

I thought it was licensing/patent issues as opposed to incompatibilities with the GPL...

shockwaffle wrote.
You've obviously never had to spend a day scrubbing conficker from a network of fully patched Windows systems with up to date, reputable antivirus software.

Your dead right there I have never had to do that. As never been infected with any virus yet as I do have good Virus , firewall, malware protection installed.

In fact never had any problems with Vista full stop.

But I am not claiming that people who use other Systems are morons like it seems Mac and Linux users seem to like doing.

I have Windows on this here desktop, but my router and NAS both run Linux.

More routers run Linux than Windows, by over 9000%.

However, since it's free you can't really count the sales

Who's claiming that?



And if you ask me, the GPL is what is holding Linux back.