Linux is Useless in the Real World

[John Lewis]

I posted this on MepisLovers and got some interesting replies. I thought it would be interesting to get the Puppy perspective so who will jump in first?
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At least that is what I was told yesterday by one of the local computer shop proprietors. I had just told him I used Linux when He asked if I had Win7 yet.

Define Real World. It seems to me, in my real world, that Linux does 100% of what I need. I have WinXP on a machine partition and haven't used it in several years.

So his Real World is probably that of commerce. Is he right therefore? How do we answer his, to my mind, ridiculous assertions?

I pointed out I've been virus free for years while much of his work is cleaning virus rubbish out of Win machines. Heck he'd lose a lot of income without the virus prone systems.

Any way. I thought this would be an interesting point of discussion although it probably has come up before.

John

[KF6SNJ]

Given that I am the known Linux user at the computer store I frequent, though I have no intention of going there for my next laptop (thier inventory and what I actually want do not line up), I have had my share of Linux vs. Windows discussions. One the things I frequently have heard is that Linux is worthless for gaming. Nevermind programs like WINE, Cedegra, and Play-On-Linux or games written specifically for Linux. I am usually quick to mention that Linux can and does quite well at gaming, though I am not a gamer. I am also quick to mention that when it comes to office applications, OpenOffice is still more user friendly than anything Micro$oft has ever put out, not to mention its being free. As for problems, my problems are all the result of faulty hardware that likely wouldn't even work under Windows. Perhaps your vendor is too profit driven and his computer education comes primarily from M$ sales brocheres and commercials. It is truly hard to find a computer store in which the technicians are truly savvy about the technology and software that they are using, or so it has been my experience.

[01micko]

My dad always told me that I was in another world.

Guess he was right!

[tubeguy]

As far as computers go, I have two Real Worlds, one at work and one at home. Work is my Windows world and home is my Linux world, and in the spirit of Kipling, never the twain shall meet.

Everything we need computers for at work can be done as well or better with Linux, but that just isn't going to happen, so I keep up with Windows because it's my job.

At home, which is a worry-free zone, I spend most of my time on the laptop, and everything I want to do is done faster and better with Linux.

I guess what I'm saying is "Real Worlds" are subjective. While I have never understood the mentality of not wanting to know how stuff works that one uses every day, I have eeked out a living helping people that won't take the time to learn for themselves. Linux, for all its pure coolness, still has a learning curve for most people because most people are in a Windows world, and my experience is that most people are unwilling to change because of that.

If MS had never existed we might see a world of OS2 Warp, Apple or some other system. I can even imagine a world of terminals all connected to mainframes (Wang comes to mind). What we have in the world now is a Windows-centric userland, which, for what it's worth, is because Bill Gates is a freaking genius. Back in the day Microsoft was the shit, and it gradually became the Micro$oft behemoth we see today. Same thing with AOL. They made it easy and drew the masses in. And because Windows is on so many desktops, most never realize that Linux/Unix/BSD etc actually runs most of the networks and servers they all rely on.

So when somebody says Linux is useless in the real world, I have to ask what real world they are talking about.

[WhoDo]

So when somebody says Linux is useless in the real world, I have to ask what real world they are talking about.

"Perception is Reality". Ain't that the Truth? Next time refer whoever to The Matrix and ask them to tell you which part was reality and which part fantasy. Learning what is possible is the only way to escape any matrix of perceived reality. Gates wants to keep them all plugged in but flying Puppies can put paid to that ambition.

I know, I know. Too deep for some but it's late and I make no apologies.

[ndujoe1]

Puppy Linux fits my "real" world for business, and fun. Been using it for years.

[Flash]

I think an operating system is something (an integrated collection of drivers and utility programs?) that provides a "virtual machine" in which application programs can run on particular computer hardware. People who complain about Linux are really complaining about the lack of good (in their estimation at least) application programs that will run in Linux, not Linux the operating system.

All the Linux distributions I've seen include a selection of application programs which have been tested and integrated with that particular configuration of Linux. I think it's these included application programs that people are confusing with Linux the operating system.

[SirDuncan]

A few years ago, Steve Ballmer (as in MS CEO Ballmer) said that Linux accounted for 60% of the market share in the server world. I'm pretty sure that he was lumping in BSD, etc. with Linux, but that still looks like a big number for something that is "useless". Google runs their server farms entirely on Linux. Perhaps this person does not consider servers (and by extension the internet) to have real world applications?

Then there's the smart phone and mobile device market. Apple and Google have the 2 OSes that are emerging as the dominant forces in the market, and Google's OS is Linux based. Palm's WebOS is also Linux based. Many of the thousands of lower-end audio players are running some form of Linux.

If he said that Linux was useless for the business desktop he might have had a valid argument (legacy support for older software, employee retraining costs, less than perfect Office compatibility from OO, etc.). I wouldn't agree with him, but I could at least understand where he was coming from.

[benali72]

I've run my business on Linux for 5 years or so and estimate I've saved several thousand dollars by doing so. Of course, there are many bigger, more important businesses than mine whose Linux use is well-documented online.

Plus there are tens of millions of Linux personal computer users worldwide.

It doesn't get much more real than that.

[raffy]

Maybe he means by "real world" "Internet cafes".

When I met Internet cafe owners two years ago, they said that if Linux can

- play (Windows) games
- run Yahoo! Messenger (including video and phone conferencing)

then they would switch OS.

[Lobster]

Linux is Useless in the Real World

Tsk tsk. The 'Real World' is being maneuvered into the Cloud.
http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-st ... flash.html
It may take another 10 years before major governments realize
that software production is a public service
Meanwhile corporates charge us for what we have already bought,
programed and been using for years.

Changing the box is not an improvement.

Windows has excellent software.
My sister bought some but can not run it
Virus meltdown - she is using the otherworldly Puppy . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Microsoft

Clue - no matter how good software is
If not running it is useless . . .

At her work IBM (a company that uses Linux on its own desktops)
keeps her Windows machine working - for how long?
IBM will provide Linux solutions once the management
learn it is available and cheaper . . .
In the UK major financial constraints will mean Linux
will enable cuts to corporate software taxation (the notorious Microsoft tax)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund
and that could come after this years elections

“First they ignore you,
then they laugh at you,
then they fight you,
then you win.

[smokey01]

It never fails to amuse me how closely perception is to ignorance.

There are so many people who won't even try Linux. There are many reasons such as:

a. I already have and paid for Windows
b. Why do I need to look at Windows when it does all I need
c. The fear of having to learn a new OS

In my experience people simply don't like change. Remember when ATM (hole in the walls) were introduced? Imagine how you would cope if you could not use one but there was a lot of resistance at the time.

If Joe average took the time to analyse the various available OS he/she might get a bit of a surprise, well if they knew how to interpret the data. I don't mean to sound condescending but the good needs to be compared to the bad to get an accurate picture. Advantages versus disadvantages.

The other biggie is support or the lack of it. Joe Average is quite computer illiterate and is not game to change operating systems. What happens if it breaks, who will fix it, how much will that cost, etc etc.

I'm a bit like tubeguy. At work it's windows, albeit XP and at home it's Puppy Linux. I do have Windows 7 but it is rarely used.

It saddens me to see so many people miss out on something as good as Puppy Linux through ignorance.

At the end of the day people make their own choices and they have to live by them. Nobody said they had to be good decisions though.

[DMcCunney]

At least that is what I was told yesterday by one of the local computer shop proprietors. I had just told him I used Linux when He asked if I had Win7 yet.

Define Real World. It seems to me, in my real world, that Linux does 100% of what I need. I have WinXP on a machine partition and haven't used it in several years.

So his Real World is probably that of commerce. Is he right therefore? How do we answer his, to my mind, ridiculous assertions?

I pointed out I've been virus free for years while much of his work is cleaning virus rubbish out of Win machines. Heck he'd lose a lot of income without the virus prone systems.

The Real World is what the customer wants. You stay in business selling anything by stocking what your customers want to buy.

They don't want to buy Linux systems.

Yes, Linux is very stable and doesn't crash. Yes, for practical purposes, viruses don't exist for Linux. Yes, Linux is free software.

But to counter all those positives, Linux has a fatal negative: it's different.

The average computer user buys a computer to be a tool that can do things they need to do. They learn just as much as is required to be able to use it for their purposes. They are not techs. They are not interested in delving into the guts of the OS. They may not know what an OS is. And you know what? They largely don't have to. They can buy a Windoze bob preloaded with everything they need to do to surf the web, read and reply to email, watch videos, listen to MP3s, create documents and spreadsheets , simply by clicking on icons. They may be aware that Windows is under the hood, though I've encountered some who aren't. They may even know which version of Windows, though a fair number don't know that.

They will not be interested in coming up the learning curve on a whole different OS, which will also require coming up the learning curve on a whole new set of applications, because the stuff they have in Windows mostly isn't available for Linux. Yes, you can often get comparable programs, but see above about learning curve.

Windows owns the desktop, and will continue to own the desktop. Linux will always be a niche market item in that area. It requires a learning curve to be able to use it effectively, and in most cases it requires the user to know more about the system than they probably do to get it set up.

I recommend Linux to folks, but I'm fussy about whom. Most of the folks I know fall into the "Don't know and don't want to know" category in the areas that Linux affects. They aren't stupid. They simply have other interests and other uses for their time. A Windows box off the shelf does what they need and they already know how to use it.

I compare computers to automobiles. You can own and drive a car without being a mechanic or understanding the principles of operation of the four-stroke internal combustion engine. All you need to know is how to drive. If it breaks, there are specialists you pay to fix it.

Computers aren't there yet, though considerable improvements have been made in installation and ease of use. But Linux lags in that area. To make effective use of Linux, you largely have to be a mechanic and have some knowledge of how the box works. Expecting everyone to be a mechanic or want to become one is a profoundly silly notion. It won't happen. Deal with it.
______
Dennis

[cthisbear]

Dennis the Menace.
Good last post DCM.

It reminds me of people getting into those little Dodgem cars
at shows and fairs etc. Everyone has a good laugh at their erratic driving....a real hoot.

What they forget in their mirth is that those they are laughing at
go to the car park and drive themselves home.
Now that's comedy.

Chris.

[Lobster]

Expecting everyone to be a mechanic or want to become one is a profoundly silly notion.

Well said Dennis

I have lost the cold sweat symptoms
when someone mentions the Linux command line . . .
However . . .
Usability 'just works', means accommodating the
'Linux is for Geeks' hard line core
and going for a 'Linux is chique' mentality.
Penguins do have an image problem
Blame Bugman! (Official Puppy scapegoat)

We can have both

Tron must die

[8-bit]

As to linux vs. windows for ease of use, I recently had a grandson bring me his windows PC that was running VIsta.
He had the hard drive basically filled with music files and a LOT of extras.
He wanted to plays some DVDs and could not because the drive was failing to be recognized by windows.
Also, windows took forever to get to a functional desktop.
I scoured the internet and found a fix to the corrupted register and he had his dvd drive back.
But before I did, I fired up Puppy lupu-113 on his PC and the DVD drive was found and everything else hardware wise.

He also had another laptop with him that also ran Vista.
It also failed to find the DVD drive and also did not have the firmware for the laptop installed. So I went to the laptop site, and downloaded and installed the firmware. That got the USB, sound and I was hoping the DVD drive recongnized.
But no go on the DVD.
When I checked the drivers, yes drivers, for the dvd, I got a message of all of the system resources were being used so the driver could not be enabled and to free up some system resources.

So, which sounded easier.
Puppy working with all the hardware on the laptop. or Vista wanting to download and install drivers for EVERYTHING!

[Aitch]

8-bit,

So surely the title in your case should be 'Vista useless in the real world' not Linux?

I think Dennis is closest to the real world understanding, but the real world is prone to change unexpectedly....but business expects support contracts, and many windoze users expect to have to do a bit of 'fixing' & 'maintenance' to keep it running, even though they don't think of themselves as geeks or mechanics

Aitch

[2lss]

I wonder what the definition of "real world" is.

If it is based on market share then wouldn't mac's osx fall in the same category since it has (according to the last statistics I read) a share similar to linux?

I don't see how "real world" could be defined by the performance since 446 out of the top 500 supercomputers run some form of linux.

If "real world" is based on ease of use then I could maybe understand, but it also depends on the linux distro. Arch, or Gentoo are most likely way to complicated for the computer novice but something like Ubuntu or Fedora may fit. Android is also based on linux and it seems pretty straight forward to me.

IMO, the guy wanted to sell a windows 7 licence so that means linux is useless in the real world

just my $.02

[WhoDo]

The Real World is what the customer wants. You stay in business selling anything by stocking what your customers want to buy.

Anecdotal evidence1 - IBM and the PS/2 with microchannel architecture ... say what?

Anecdotal evidence2 - Apple computer with Motorola CPU's ... huh?

Anecdotal evidence3 - Microsoft with Office2007? ... we'll see!

Arrogance has led many a hardware or software vendor to try and "drive the market" instead of the other way around. That's a mistake. Where Compaq et al originally succeeded against IBM was listening to the consumer in providing a better ISA and offering compatibility with extra performance when they were ready for that.

They don't want to buy Linux systems.

Reminds me of my kids saying they didn't want broccoli - it looked and sounded strange. When I told them it was "little trees" they couldn't resist trying it. They still eat it today, although one says she hates the "little tree trunks"; she's 26 this month.

Yes, Linux is very stable and doesn't crash. Yes, for practical purposes, viruses don't exist for Linux. Yes, Linux is free software.

But to counter all those positives, Linux has a fatal negative: it's different.

There is far less difference in running a decent desktop Linux compared with, say XP, than there is trying to move from Word 2003 to Word 2007. Now THAT'S "different".

Give the average user a Puppy PC with a Window$ XP-style interface, Abiword and Gnumeric and they will happily compute all day long! I made a habit of doing just that while rebirthing old PC's for charity and it worked without complaint, most of the time. Those that couldn't be satisfied wanted to play Window$ games; that was their "real world". Unfortunately WINE was not sufficiently mature at the time to solve the problem, but then I am talking about 2005-2006 not 2010.

The average computer user buys a computer to be a tool that can do things they need to do. ...[snip]... They can buy a Windoze bob preloaded with everything they need to do to surf the web, read and reply to email, watch videos, listen to MP3s, create documents and spreadsheets , simply by clicking on icons.

Sounds like a typical Puppy user to me.

They will not be interested in coming up the learning curve on a whole different OS, which will also require coming up the learning curve on a whole new set of applications, because the stuff they have in Windows mostly isn't available for Linux. Yes, you can often get comparable programs, but see above about learning curve.

Either they will care about the OS or not ... your own argument. If they don't why will they need to learn anything about the OS itself? As for applications, I've already given the definitive example of that in the WINDOW$ world ... Word 2003 vs. Word 2007. The user interface is so different even I have trouble finding what I want, and I'm nothing like the poor, dumb XP user being forced inexorably toward Windows 7 and that horrible "new" application interface ... or does Micro$oft call it a new application "experience" these days.

Windows owns the desktop, and will continue to own the desktop. Linux will always be a niche market item in that area. It requires a learning curve to be able to use it effectively, and in most cases it requires the user to know more about the system than they probably do to get it set up.

I NEVER use absolutes! It's ALWAYS too dangerous and you INEVITABLY get caught out!

To make effective use of Linux, you largely have to be a mechanic and have some knowledge of how the box works. Expecting everyone to be a mechanic or want to become one is a profoundly silly notion. It won't happen. Deal with it.

Flawed logic here, mate. Linux doesn't require any more effort than Window$ for those users of whom you speak. Most users who just want to use their computer as a "tool" will only care that they can find a menu and an icon for what they want, either in the OS or in the application.

Sharing data files is the key and Linux is getting very good at what it does. If we're talking ODT it's even better than Micro$oft who simply can't resist trying to make an open system (OpenXML) proprietary in order to be the only ones who can sell or support it.

...due to the changes introduced in a later version, Office 2007 is not entirely in compliance with ISO/IEC 29500:2008

So for now it's ODT vs. OOXML, OXML or whatever variant Micro$oft thinks they can get away with calling a new "Standard Format" (based on M$ rules of course).

[DMcCunney]

I wonder what the definition of "real world" is.

If it is based on market share then wouldn't mac's osx fall in the same category since it has (according to the last statistics I read) a share similar to linux?

Mac OS/X is hardware specific. You get it because you buy a Mac. Apple doesn't license it to other vendors. You can get OS/X up on a Windoze PC in a multi-boot setup, but it's a non-trivial operation. It's much easier to get Windows up on an Intel Mac alongside Mac OS/X. Apple's fine with that - you already bought a Mac, and being able to run Windows too simply makes it more useful.

Apple is happy enough with their market share. They are quite profitable, thank you.

I don't see how "real world" could be defined by the performance since 446 out of the top 500 supercomputers run some form of linux.

You have to distinguish just what Real World you are talking about. There's more than one.

Linux largely owns the server market in Internet hosting applications. For corporate data centers supporting internal users, Windows Server rules, as they mostly run Exchange Server talking to Outlook on the desktop for email and calendaring, and Active Directory supporting Microsoft Networking for the LAN. Linux may see usage for specific applications. (I have been a corporate IT Type working in that environment and supporting that infrastructure.)

What is being discussed here is the desktop. Windows owns it, and that dominance isn't going away any time soon. You start with the fact that the boxes come with Windows pre-installed, and often with an assortment of stuff pre-loaded. (I just set up a friend's new laptop running Windows 7 Home Premium. It came with trial versions of MS Office 2007 and Norton 360 already on the drive. I gave her Firefox, Open Office 3.2, and did not activate Office or Norton.)

In the corporate environment, it's overwhelmingly Windows, via site licenses with MS support contracts. A minority of places also support Mac OS/X, largely in industries like advertising where Macs already had a significant presence. With the exception of some software developers houses, almost nobody uses Linux on the desktop. (I used to be a Linux Admin for an Internet shop. We ran CentOS on the servers, along with Solaris, and did software development in Java and Flash. The desktops all ran XP, and the IT Director (who was a very experienced *nix admin, developer, and architect) was eloquent about how poor Linux was as a desktop solution. (What he ran was a Macbook with OS/X.)

If "real world" is based on ease of use then I could maybe understand, but it also depends on the linux distro. Arch, or Gentoo are most likely way to complicated for the computer novice but something like Ubuntu or Fedora may fit. Android is also based on linux and it seems pretty straight forward to me.

Ubuntu may fit. Fedora rather less. (I run Ubuntu here as well as Puppy. It does the best job I have seen in a Linux distro of figuring out what you have, setting itself up, and Just Working. It also has the best [package management I've seen. The repository has a database of dependencies. Download a package, the package manager examines your system to see what you already have, and you get the package plus any missing dependencies, so again, things Just Work.)

Android is indeed based on Linux. So is Palm's WebOS. For that matter, so is my wireless router. But the user generally neither knows nor cares that there's a Linux kernel in there. For our purposes, these can all be considered "embedded" Linux systems, customized for dedicated usage. That may change: there's a report of a Google tablet in development based on Android. I have the Android SDK. It's modular, designed to allow hardware vendors to build an image including support for the particular things they want their device to do. I was wondering when we would see things based on Android that weren't smartphones.

And while Android is getting design wins and people are buying Android based devices (Motorola recently reported a turn around in their smartphone business based on Droid sales), people aren't buying because there's Linux in there. They are buying because of Google's name and the branding. (For that matter, many folks who buy an iPhone neither know nor care that a variant of OS/X is in there: for them, it's a fashion accessory bought because it's cool.)

Ultimately, people buy devices to do work, and "ease of use" may be more a matter of the applications used than the OS they run on. Convenience and familiarity rule. Windows and Office are what most folks are used to and prefer. They switch because they are forced to, not because they want to do so.

IMO, the guy wanted to sell a windows 7 licence so that means linux is useless in the real world

just my $.02

Linux isn't useless, but on the desktop, it's not popular, and will remain unpopular.
______
Dennis