These Linux myths need to die

[AlphaJohn]

Best myth: I'll never use Linux.

Linux is on 88% of the phones in the market, not to even speak of the people using Linux indirectly via Facebook/Google and so on.

PS: Linux is not GNU Linux

 

[Randy_The_Squirrel]

And people don't even consider the linux under the skin of their shiny Macbook

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

The gaming situation is the only thing holding me back, I'm not even a big gamer, but the few games I do play can't run natively in Linux and I can't be bothered to dual-boot anymore.

So windows it is ... for now.

 

[AlphaJohn]

And people don't even consider the linux under the skin of their shiny Macbook

Erm, thats BSD not Linux do not mix the 2.

 

[bwana]

And people don't even consider the linux under the skin of their shiny Macbook

Because UNIX.

 

[Randy_The_Squirrel]

The gaming situation is the only thing holding me back, I'm not even a big gamer, but the few games I do play can't run natively in Linux and I can't be bothered to dual-boot anymore.

So windows it is ... for now.

I am slowly getting some of my games to run on Ubuntu, but the issue always revolves around hacks and then the Steam integration doesn't work. But I think its just a matter of time...

 

[Thor]

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/1

lol

 

[konfab]

Not really, the latest releases of Ubuntu are easy to use, most people can get apps off the store, software updates are able to be done via GUI, etc.

Technically *nix distros have had a pseudo app store in the form of GUI packet managers. Getting a piece of software off them isn't exactly difficult.

 

[Randy_The_Squirrel]

Erm, thats BSD not Linux do not mix the 2.

Well its a UNIX command line, accepts all my commands I used on Ubuntu, of course there are subtle, and not-so-subtle differences. But, I am not bull****ting here, I installed some Java thingie on my Macbook last year, I untarred the thing I pulled from the Ubuntu repo, on OS X and installed it and it worked.

 

[JerryMungo]

The time wasted by a fist time Linux installer and user is easily offset by the saving on installation of anti-virus and all sorts of protection on windows and then the killing off of craapware after installation.

Linux installation:
1. Pop in DVD and start installation
2. Pick a few options
3. Make coffee
4. Return to usable system with Office package, proper browser, etc. all installed and start working.

You install Antivirus in Windows? I haven't had to do that since XP. As for crapware, that's probably the fault of the disk shuffler. Give people less options and they're less likely to install crap - that's the difference between Windows and Linux as well as iOS and Android right there.

 

[JerryMungo]

Technically *nix distros have had a pseudo app store in the form of GUI packet managers. Getting a piece of software off them isn't exactly difficult.

You have to just learn each individual one that you'll be using. That's the bit that gets a lot of people. Sometimes too much choice is bad.

 

[NarrowBandFtw]

I am slowly getting some of my games to run on Ubuntu, but the issue always revolves around hacks and then the Steam integration doesn't work. But I think its just a matter of time...

DirectX's dominance has to die first, I truly hope more and more game developers support Vulkan instead of, or in addition to, DirectX going forward.

 

[backstreetboy]

While I wont call linux easy to use unless its a dedicated for for doing a very specific task, like Openelec, Pfsense/IPCop, Android, etc... Linux desktop environments are still very difficult to grasp to the average user, the file structure takes time to learn, the fact that just about every tutorial or teaching aid forces users to use the terminal is both Linuxes biggest strength and weakness, new users dont want to use the terminal, and there isnt enough resources out there that shows them how to do the same thing in GUI.

This! That's why Linux market share is only rising because of Chromebooks and the like. I mean hell just to properly use Plex I needed to add it to a user account with "root" privileges. Stuff like that is a PITA for a normal user. Not sure if containers will fix the issue and meanwhile Windows 10 is getting better and better.

 

[Randy_The_Squirrel]

You have to just learn each individual one that you'll be using. That's the bit that gets a lot of people. Sometimes too much choice is bad.

I find that a bit hard to believe, how can the difference between yum and apt, for instance, be so bad..

 

[JerryMungo]

DirectX's dominance has to die first, I truly hope more and more game developers support Vulkan instead of, or in addition to, DirectX going forward.

So that's one myth that's not really a myth. It is genuinely easier to game on Windows right now.

 

[Randy_The_Squirrel]

These myths arise because of people struggling... That's why.
If it doesn't plug and play then it must be crap, that kind of thinking.

 

[pinball wizard]

As of this writing... Raspberry Pi's Debian Wheezy does not include several files I need to execute calls to the OS via drivers I write myself, or daemons I write myself. It is an extra step I have to perform, and if the headers are not there, its going to be extremely difficult for the average user to know why the thing doesn't work. Even for me it took a bit of reading up. Windows doesn't have this kind of problem even though Windows sucks as far as I am concerned. Despite Microsoft being idiots they somehow got it right with this... DLL hell is something I haven't experienced in a long time, but it was kind of awkward to still experience dependency hell as recently as 2016.

Also, the quality of some code remains questionable.. you can go look for yourself, I am not going to mention packages here, because it will just lead to flaming/debate

Comparing Raspberry Pi version of Debian to a latest LTS Ubuntu distro is completely unfair and missing the point.

 

[Kosmik]

Gaming is a problem for me. Everything else works in linux and my hardworking items run in python anyway

 

[SauRoNZA]

Not really, the latest releases of Ubuntu are easy to use, most people can get apps off the store, software updates are able to be done via GUI, etc.

The problem is (as opposed to other Operating Systems) when things go wrong Linux is infinitely more difficult to resurrect for the other statement regarding the command line.

Unless you've locked that thing up tight with no admin controls to users it can be a pretty horrible thing for Joe Average to try and fix.

 

[JerryMungo]

Comparing Raspberry Pi version of Debian to a latest LTS Ubuntu distro is completely unfair and missing the point.

How so? It's one of Linux's strengths. Try running Windows on a Pi lol.
Linux's strengths lie in it's flexibility, variety and open-ness, not it's user friendliness which is a byproduct of a single unified UI in the case of Windows. As I said earlier, it's the same as the difference between Android and iOS. iOS is inherently more secure, more user friendly and less prone to bloat because of the entire ecosystem including unified hardware platform and stringent marketplace. That's it's stength. If you want flexible and more choice, you have to sacrifice a bit of that and go with Android. That's it's strength.