
Ubuntu and Its Leader Set Sights on the Mainstream - peter123
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/11/business/11ubuntu.html
======
jawngee
Until someone spends a good bucket of cash on hiring UI talent to clean up the
abortion that is the linux desktop, they'll still be lagging way behind OSX
and Windows, both of which offer a superior and consistent experience.

I love linux, btw, and know my way around the command prompt fairly well. And,
of course, it is my first preference for _most_ server scenarios.

That said, my opinion is that it's a near failure as a desktop OS.

I have Ubuntu installed on my Dell laptop and have had it on there for about a
month. It's certainly usable, and I certainly get my work done in it, but it
always feels like I'm using something that has been duct taped together.
Everytime I climb back aboard my Mac Pro at work, it feels like I just took a
shower.

For starters, X has to go the way of Quartz. I still can't get this laptop to
play full screen video at a decent frame rate. No problem when I dual boot
into Windows. No problem when I had hackintosh installed on this laptop. Why
is this so hard? It's not the decoding, it's the drawing.

Basic shit like window ornamentation is always "almost there" and it
frustrates me that it isn't "there". It's like the uncanny valley of UI, this
linux desktop.

Compviz is cool, but feels cheap and has all kinds of redraw issues.

Most of the free replacements for professional tools feel like they're
designed by people with severe visual disabilities. Froo, you are in for a
rude awakening thinking you can replace photoshop with Gimp, even Gimp 3.0 is
still a long shot away.

Thankfully, I can get my work done in a full screen terminal for most of it,
Eclipse for the rest.

That's my opinion after using it for a month. So not ready for prime time.

~~~
yef
Let's get one thing out of the way, first: the simple fact that you can
_compare_ Ubuntu (cost: $0) with OSX ($120 + custom hardware) and Windows
($117) is _utterly amazing_.

You make a valid point that certain things break and take coaxing and
searching message boards to work. That's definitely bad.

The point I would question is that of the UI. There are many aspects of OSX
that are weird -- the mouse tracking, installing applications, setting a
background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal. Other issues exist
for Windows. I can see how it's hard to detach yourself from something you're
used to, though.

Those are going to be the two main issues in getting Ubuntu off the ground
with average users. Having shit not break, and being close enough to users'
existing habits to make the switch easy.

My hunch is that things are pretty close to where they'll end up. Linux will
be an attractive alternative among techies, hobbyists, and average folks with
spare/old machines. Microsoft and Apple will respond by cutting prices, and in
the end, won't lose a substantial share of the market to Linux on the desktop,
but suffer decreased margins. The user wins.

~~~
parenthesis
What is exactly is weird with "the mouse tracking, installing applications,
setting a background color for your desktop, bringing up a terminal" in OS X?

~~~
yef
Mouse tracking: the acceleration is different than what I expect; slow moves
don't seem to get me anywhere, quick ones make me overshoot. I've played with
settings and downloaded third-party fixes, nothing seems to make it work the
way it does in Ubuntu or Windows.

Installing applications: they usually come on a disk image, which you mount,
open, and then find the program. Natural inclination is to double click the
program and run it. That's great until you unmount the disk image. What you
really have to do is drag it to the applications folder. This is never
explained, nor do average users know what a disk image is. Windows install
wizards are pretty nice; Debian/Ubuntu's package manager is also super nice.

Background color: try setting your OSX background to black. When I tried it, I
found that I couldn't. I had to get a purely black image, and then stretch it.
Not a problem with Ubuntu or with Windows.

Terminal: by default, the terminal program is not part of the dock, it's
buried in the Applications folder. Given that "it's BSD! you have a terminal!"
was part of the hype around OSX, I was terribly confused the first time I went
on an OSX machine to actually run it. Not a problem with Ubuntu. Moot in
Windows, you download Cygwin if you have to.

------
dhughes
Linux has been pretty solid since 1999/2000, before that it was OK for home
use but you had to like messing around with it (although it's no worse than
Windows was in '93...making a boot disk to play games to get around the memory
limitations). Ubuntu blew the doors off when it came along and made it a Mom
and Pop OS i.e. anyone could easily install and use it, I put it on my 60
year-old Aunt's computer.

Also the other reason Linux is gaining in popularity is not due to Linux, most
average home computer users all do the same things; check e-mail (web based
not ISP), IM (web), browse web pages - all of which are not OS dependent.

~~~
pcc
Hmmn -- surely, if something were completely independent/neutral of OS, by
definition then it would not be able to exert any influence on the popularity
of any OS?

So if Linux arguably is gaining in popularity because of average home users
checking webmail, browsing etc; then it seems to me this must in fact be
ascribable to some fundamental differentiating characteristic(s) of Linux
applicable to these users.

Possible differentiators might be cost, ability to arrange for fast boot to a
usable web browsing environment, reduced virus concerns, etc. etc.

~~~
etal
There's a theory that any industry category will naturally support three
competitors, in a certain market-share ratio like 60%, 30%, 10% [1]. This
happens free of market manipulation, and mostly depends on marketing strategy
rather than the competitors' actual merits. Think Google, MSN and Yahoo right
now, for example, or car brands in the past, soft drinks, car rental companies
-- there's a market leader, a rival/also-ran, and a something-different.
Anyone else has trivial market share.

Following this rule, the market for operating systems is clearly out of whack.
Windows' share should be much smaller, but still majority, because that's how
it's marketed -- the market leader, the one everybody else uses. Apple should
get the Avis spot -- #2, but we try harder. And Linux should still hold onto
around 10% share, by adapting to meet the specialized needs that Joe User-
oriented OSes have to leave behind.

The rise of cross-platform and platform-independent apps, and mobile devices
where the OS shouldn't even be noticeable, break the network effect that
supports Windows' considerable lead and allows the market shares to drift back
toward the natural ranking.

[1] Closest citation: _22 Immutable Laws of Marketing_ , Law of the Ladder. I
think Laura Ries has supported the 3-player claim more specifically.

------
etal
A feature on R a few days ago, and now Ubuntu? What, did Stallman's airship
raid the NYT over the holidays?

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jacobolus
Could 2009 finally be …
[http://www.google.com/search?q=%22year+of+the+linux+desktop%...](http://www.google.com/search?q=%22year+of+the+linux+desktop%22)
??

~~~
froo
I had a dual boot xp/ubuntu system for the last 18 months now and last night
around 1am I reformatted and am on a pure ubuntu system as Photoshop was
really the only thing that kept me tethered to Windows (I bit the bullet and
have instead decided to learn GIMP)

I read the article this morning, good read.

~~~
jacobolus
> _(I bit the bullet and have instead decided to learn GIMP)_

Don't do it. You're artificially constraining yourself with a tool less
common, less powerful, less stable, less elegant. If you instead spend that
time learning about color science, the benefit to your work (assuming you do
any kind of art or design) will be much more significant.

~~~
froo
I agree that photoshop is the better of the two tools, I'm mostly using gimp
BECAUSE it's a less powerful tool.. it's an experiment to see what I can
create using lesser tools so that I rely more on my creative abilities and
less on an elegant solution.

I may well end up hating it, but I wont know that until I give it a try.

~~~
jacobolus
Using bad equipment as a constraint on your art is not likely to spark
creativity, but instead just give you a worse result. It's like saying you're
going to start programming in Cobol instead of Python because it might make
you rely more on your creative abilities, or you're going to start running in
wooden clogs instead of running shoes, or replace your computer display with a
10" one. If you want to guide creative thinking, put a constraint on the
output, not the toolset.

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gibsonf1
If only Autodesk products ran on Linux! (I think they made a pact with MS
years ago to be exclusive on MS though)

~~~
froo
You're statement is wrong unfortunately.

Maya (arguably the premier 3D modelling program for film and games) runs on
Windows, Mac and Linux systems

~~~
gibsonf1
Well, their primary applications, such as AutoCad and Revit, only run on
Windows. They own roughly 80% of the world market in these cad applications.

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hussong
From the article: "Ubuntu (pronounced oo-BOON-too)" -- intended pun or
involuntary irony?

