These Linux myths need to die

Randy_The_Squirrel said:
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.
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True, stereotypes exist for a good reason.

And yes plug and play goes hand in hand for ease of use. Us geeks might be happy with many non plug-and-play things but that doesn't mean the OS is easy for everyone.
 
SauRoNZA said:
True, stereotypes exist for a good reason.

And yes plug and play goes hand in hand for ease of use. Us geeks might be happy with many non plug-and-play things but that doesn't mean the OS is easy for everyone.
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+1
If you want to look at Linux's biggest hurdle to desktop penetration, just look at the various vendors approach to marketing the OS vs Microsoft. I can walk into any computer shop, in any part of the world and talk / purchase / get support for Windows. Heck, some vendors won't even let you order your computer without Windows. Not so with Linux.
 
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pinball wizard said:
In the context of this article, and the article saying one of the myths about Linux is that it is hard to use, and some muppet bitching about debian, when the article is talking about regular desktop end users.
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So Debian is not a regular desktop? Ubuntu and Mint is based on Debian. That's why the Raspberry Pi Foundation went with it because it's so popular.
 
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pinball wizard said:
In the context of this article, and the article saying one of the myths about Linux is that it is hard to use, and some muppet bitching about debian, when the article is talking about regular desktop end users.
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Reality is it's easier than it was but still often hard when you have to venture outside the lines a bit.
Regular desktop end users don't care about Linux, they care about productivity or getting some gaming in.
 
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Randy_The_Squirrel said:
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.
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Yeah, still isn't Linux. Windows 10 has "Bash on Windows" which allows you to do much the same thing now. It's more than just a bash shell - Windows has had an entire POSIX subsystem for a while, and this new feature expands on that - you get an entire *nix subsystem with apt tools, etc. Still beta, but these days MS are doing a lot right and I can see it being a pretty decent facility down the line.
 
Linux is blindingly simple to use and incredibly straight forward as long as you are willing to spend the time learning its principles and processes. The same goes for Windows. I grew up on Windows and knew it well, but for the last 14 years have run Linux exclusively. That is a couple years more than I ran Windows for. It was a learning curve to go from Windows to Linux just like it was to go from MSDOS to Windows, yet all these years later I can fix a completely borked Linux machine in a couple of hours, but a simple boot problem with Windows and I'm forced to re-install and reload all software and data because I have no idea how the EFI boot loader works on Windows and it keeps trying to fix itself by installing to the first FAT32 drive it finds which just happens to be the damn EFI boot partition and I can't get a any sort of explanation from Microsoft as to why it is doing this and I have no means to check wtf is going on with the code to solve the problem.

Linux is the superior OS to me for many reasons, but the big one is at no point can you ever reach a stone wall where customer support says "you're screwed - reinstall". There is always someone, or some way to fix the problem.

Yes, I am an advanced user who can go beyond the means of regular users in terms of solving issues, but because I'm the "IT Guy" for my family/friends/colleagues I choose to learn and use the OS which allows me to go the extra mile to help them instead of repeating "you're screwed - reinstall".
 
SilverCode said:
Linux is the superior OS to me for many reasons, but the big one is at no point can you ever reach a stone wall where customer support says "you're screwed - reinstall". There
Yes, I am an advanced user who can go beyond the means of regular users in terms of solving issues, but because I'm the "IT Guy" for my family/friends/colleagues I choose to learn and use the OS which allows me to go the extra mile to help them instead of repeating "you're screwed - reinstall".
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great, unfortunately Linux needs sales people to become everyone's fav desktop.
 
Linux is very user friendly








Linux is even more picky about its friends.
 
Heavyonthemagick said:
Err... you do realize that's not windows...
Not a window in sight.
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Windows unlike Linux refers to both the Kernel and the applications that make the OS. Windows in this case = the kernel that can be found on ARM, MIPS as well as x86 based CPU's.

This is nothing new either Windows always had a CE component since 1996.

Note: Oh and some parts of the OS is also open using shared source licence. You can start your tinkering over at https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee504813(v=winembedded.70).aspx
 
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AlphaJohn said:
Windows unlike Linux refers to both the Kernel and the applications that make the OS. Windows in this case = the kernel that can be found on ARM, MIPS as well as x86 based CPU's.

This is nothing new either Windows always had a CE component since 1996.
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The topic is about the desktop OS. Win iot is a tad off topic.
 
Heavyonthemagick said:
Linux is only free if your time has no value.
Why is that a myth?
That holds true for absolutely anything.

That said, I get the gist of the point. It's no longer as much a chore to install and use as it was 15 years ago.
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Linux is only free, if you're not in a corporate environment and need support. RHEL, Ubuntu, SLES all have yearly licensing fees for support. Yes the OS is free and you could probably get away with using it and forums to a degree. But when a serious bug hits that no one knows, you cannot raise it to be fixed, then you have to rely on someone else experiencing it.
 
Skerminkel said:
My 65 y/o mother finds it easy to use and she is about as tech savvy as the average 65 y/o grandmother.
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My 69 yo Mother In Law was using it for a few years on her laptop, when we switched back to Windows she was like wtf!!
 
Many Linux users prefer the command line for certain tasks, but popular distributions are built around graphical desktop environments.
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I'm relatively new to Linux - having only started using it last year - but try to use the terminal as much as possible.

I've mainly steered-clear of the popular fully incorporated distros, or versions of them, in that I've so far loaded Debian & Ubuntu using the minimal install option. That way, I get less clutter, and can add the software I want using the terminal. Exceptions were Chrome & Opera which I downloaded, then used the gdebi installer.

The one & only major problem I've experienced - compared to Windows (which is easy to setup dial-up connections) - was getting to understand how to setup numerous pppoeconf connections, and particularly where the data to those connections was landing up (ie ppp / peers / interfaces etc.) Info on this was scattered all over the place in various threads / wiki's, so it's something I've only sorted out in the last few days.

The problem I'm now faced with is when I boot up, the wireless connection's getting lost (will see this weekend if that continues since re-saving the relevant file). It seems that gedit isn't saving my adjustments made in commenting out the "dsl-provider" data in /etc/network/interfaces. There's a known bug message (saw in thread) that comes through on the terminal, that apparently isn't a bug, but just produces a message. Don't know if that's the cause of the file not keeping the saved data. Nano also won't exit the saved changes, as it spits out an error of another instance where the file's being used, but it certainly isn't.

Apart from that, loving the Linux journey ..
 
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Linux is only free if your time has no value
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Disagree entirely with this statement, because of how much you learn along the way, and I've only just scratched the surface.
 
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