The trouble with Linux

[fishsupreme]

The open-source community behind Linux is quite determined to see Linux become the dominant operating system on the desktop, displacing Microsoft Windows, which currently commands a market share upwards of 90%.

They try to convince everyone by emphasizing how much more stable, secure, versatile, and powerful Linux is. They talk about how much they like it, how its code is so much better due to being peer-reviewed by so many programmers, and how much control over the system it offers. On top of all this, it's cheaper (free). In addition, it's not bloated with unnecessary automation and features like MS software is. Sure, there's a bit of a learning curve to figure it all out -- it's quite different from Windows, and takes a bit of work to configure, but it's well worth the effort.

However, they're missing the point. Linux users don't like Microsoft software because it's insufficiently stable, secure, versatile, powerful, or cheap. But that's not what most Microsoft customers complain about.

You know what the most common complaint Microsoft gets is? It's too hard to use; you need to make it easier. I shouldn't have to know about all this stuff, the system should just do it for me.

People want their software to be easier and more automatic. You know what happens when you make software easier and more automatic? It gets less flexible, stable, secure, versatile, powerful, and customizeable, while getting more bloated. Also, you have to do actual market research and studies to make software easier, as well as provide documentation and support and consulting services, and that costs money.

Now, it is possible to make a usable UNIX-kernel OS. Mac OS X demonstrates this. Not coincidentally, Mac OS X costs money. But the open-source community will never produce an operating system like Windows or Mac OS X.

Because they'd hate it. They love Linux for precisely the reasons everyone else doesn't. They're geeks, and what geeks want out of their OS is very different from what your average, everyday computer user wants out of their OS.

Comments

[chezmax]

That's why my company is making a version of Linux (based on Debian and KDE) which is a lot easier to load. For example, installation takes abotu 4 clicks, and is completely automatic. The programs just work, and it's very intuitive to use.

[eagle243.livejournal.com]

I think it makes a great server operating system, but you're right about the desktop. The precise reason I'm using OS X is that it is Unix underneath. I get the best of both worlds: Unix power and flexibility, and real (and in many cases very good) honest-to-goodness end-user applications.

I would like to point out that Linux has made significant advances in the last year or two, and for those for whom budget considerations reign supreme, it does now provide a decently useable alternative.

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

The perfect UI is the one that behaves exactly as the user expects it to.

I'd say that compared to a truly good UI, the various Linuxes and Windows variants are pretty close approximations of each other.

[relfen.livejournal.com]

They're geeks, and what geeks want out of their OS is very different from what your average, everyday computer user wants out of their OS.

I've found that a large majority of them can't seem to grasp this fact either. I think the open-source community is a great thing. They allow for a lot of people to learn to code as well as bringing out some great projects. I don't need my software to be easier than it already is but I certainly prefer the ease windows allows over linux.

[pyran.livejournal.com]

I've found that a large majority of them can't seem to grasp this fact either.

Agreed. The mindset seems to be "Why wouldn't they like what I like? I mean, I like it so it must be great!"

I have a pretty simple acid test: if my grandmother can't understand it, it's too complicated. And a classic example of this is those three little words: recompile your kernel.

[stroum.livejournal.com]

Linux is for people who enjoy getting into the guts of their system. Which is why I hate it. I'm just a dumb cartoonist. I want everything to magically run when I need it to. I don't care if that sounds demanding, that's what I need as an end user who has no time to fuck around with OS. Which is why I pay Microsoft and Apple for their work. They do the fucking around for me.

Hmmm.

[jorend.livejournal.com]

I'm posting this comment from Mozilla Firebird (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/), an open-source web browser.

Now if I wasn't a hacker type I wouldn't be using Firebird; essentially nobody but geeks even knows it exists. But the reason I use it over Microsoft Internet Explorer is the user interface is better. It blocks pop-up windows. It doesn't have six toolbar buttons I never use (Home, Favorites, Media, History, Discuss, Edit with FrontPage...). It has what I need: Back, Forward, Refresh, Stop, and a Google web search box. The Tools > Options menus are more thoughtfully designed and easy to use than MSIE's equivalent.

If you were right, Firebird shouldn't exist. Somehow usability is getting addressed out there. Firebird is the most usable web browser for Windows, bar none.

Why?

• Usability doesn't need to cost tons of money. In fact you only need to test [usability] with five users (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20000319.html).
• Usability doesn't require tons of expertise. Often most usabile UI is to just copy what the user already knows (i.e. Windows) --something any open source hacker can do.

Actually the main resource required is, you have to care. Why do hackers care about usability?

• It has to do with how open source hackers get paid (http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/homesteading/homesteading/ar01s06.html). They're not paid with money. They get paid in the ego: when their software becomes widely used; when they earn the respect of their peers. Both these motivating factors push usability. The latter only works if the developers on a given project believe that usability is a fundamental facet of software excellence. Hackers vary widely on this, so open source products vary widely in usability. But in general, usability has gained a lot of ground in hackers' esteem over the past 5 years.


• It has to do with market forces. Companies that rely on open source software dedicate resources to software usability and documentation because their business (typically) is to (a) convince people to use the stuff and (b) sell support and consulting; unusable software is costly to support.


• It has to do with scratching a personal itch. What's confusing and annoying to my dad once a month is confusing and annoying to me ten times a day, because I use computers for all the same things he does (e-mail, web surfing, chatting, word processing, buyin' stuff, digital photos, music) --just more often, and for a few other things (coding and blogging) besides. I.e., the overlap between Joe Hacker's interests and Joe User's interests is greater than you've suggested.

Now this only gets me so far. Linux usability does in fact suck. But it was a lot worse five years ago, and for those of us watching things change, your article seems a bit facile.

In fact it reminds me of my own confident opinion back in 1996 that Microsoft wanted to control every single thing that happened on the desktop, but they were never going to make it on the server and didn't really care. I forget why I thought this, but it was a fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates Microsoft. No need to make the same mistake in reverse with Linux.