| friedtofu said: I only was trying to make a point that Linux (even Ubuntu) is still not as friendly as Windows in every aspect. Maybe if you never plan to do anything outside of the preinstalled apps its just as easy. Also Im sure you are technically savvy and can deal with Linux's annoyances. However most *novices* are not. I still would not want to install Ubuntu on my moms computer since the technical support calls would probably be alot longer than they are now (she uses XP). In the article conclusion he sums up pretty well what we are debating here. And remember, we are not talking about us (regular Linux users) but were trying to look at Windows vs Ubuntu in terms of the non technical masses. He says "To be honest, there's a lot about Ubuntu that impresses me. The out-of-the-box software available with the OS is well-chosen, and the Ubuntu community folks have made a good effort to support the vast majority of the things people do with their PCs....But there's at least as much about Ubuntu that I find disheartening or frustrating. There are still too many places where you have to drop to a command line and type in a fairly unintuitive set of commands to get something done, or edit a config file, or -- worst of all -- download and compile source code. For a beginner, this last is the kiss of death, because if compiling code fails, a beginner will almost certainly have no idea what to do next." |
I think you're right, the support calls would be a lot longer. But I think there would be a lot less support calls necessary, so that's equalizing that again ;)
I'd also like to point out that novices cannot deal with the easiest windows tasks, too. I can see that everyday. They know nothing about stuff like drive C: or D:, they don't know what the explorer is and they call for support whenever there's a window popping up that has more than the "OK" option to choose from.
Concerning the configuration files and compiling code:
Editing a config file is not harder (I'd say even easier) than editing the Windows registry
Since i installed Ubuntu 7.04 (feisty fawn) I never needed to compile one single source. Because of the huge popularity of Ubuntu there is virtually ALWAYS a Ubuntu package which you can install using synaptic.
Compiling sources in linux IS a task which is quite impossible for novices (even if there's no error occuring), there's no arguing about that. But in Ubuntu it is something you will NEVER need to do, unless you intend to use some very exotic and highly unpopular linux application.
