Linux-on-the-desktop pioneer Munich now considering a switch back to Windows - Polidicks

I love Linux, and its definitely a superior operating system but its quite obviously been programmed by techie people who don't remember end-user experiences may differ. Theres a reason why Windows and Mac abstract a layer of the main OS systems away from the user and that's because there are people who will literally delete system32 think its a bad thing.

[QUOTE=aydin690;45731562]Linux distros still can't agree on one universal install package and even then you have to install a lot of programs with the terminal. I don't think linux users realize that most people do NOT want to mess with the inner workings of their OS, they simply don't want that level of control. The fact that you're still reliant on the terminal for many things is a con, not a pro. Even the 'streamlined' distros like ubunto and mint aren't all that user friendly (compared to win/mac). Unless the linux distros do something drastic like dropping all reliance on the terminal, linux is never going to become a mainstream OS.[/QUOTE] For what it's worth, I was wrong on the terminal thing. I use Arch (very hands on poweruser-oriented distribution) which makes me fairly ignorant how far progressed the more mainstream ones are (except for CentOS where I only use the CLI on servers anyway) and a large number of other people corrected me - I also edited my original post to reflect what they said (you must have already started typing a response when I changed it). I know where you're probably coming from with the package manager thing, I don't really have a great response to that other than history and different people wanting different features (creating two systems which then got distributed like crazy among distributions and then a heap more different smaller ones all claiming to be better (there are some excellent, far more informed answers just a Google away better than anything I could write). [url]http://xkcd.com/927/[/url] I feel is relevant here though. -- edit Sorry everyone for making him go on about the terminal. I feel like I place the idea in his mind with what I originally wrote.

[QUOTE=PredGD;45731718]if you stick with Ubuntu, you just need to open the package manager which has a GUI and install that front-end for something else. no terminal usage required[/QUOTE] You mean Ubuntu the work space environment that makes Windows look like an artists wet dream?

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731691]The point isn't outdated, a lot of stuff is still not in any form of executable and still needs command line.[/QUOTE] You are confusing me. Do windows let you install things that don't come with any form of executable without the necessity of using a development environment where you could compile it? Static binaries can be unpacked from standard .zip/7zip/rar/tar.bz2 archives and launched using literally nothing but your mouse. Source code is something you can't just click on and launch in Windows either. What kind of software are you talking about, here?

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731732]You mean Ubuntu the work space environment that makes Windows look like an artists wet dream?[/QUOTE] then you got Mint which is based off of Ubuntu in a more minimalistic style, or xubuntu, lubuntu or whatever else there is which all comes with different desktop environments which aren't as over the top as Ubuntu's

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;45731673][...] I had the unfortunate bad luck to have to deal with broken windows. Yes, if windows work, it's nice. If windows break, fixing them is leagues harder than when linux breaks, unless you count reinstall as a legitimate way of fixing things.[/QUOTE] Mine committed suicide by rolling back updates for 30 minutes each reboot when I tried to install a service pack :suicide: My laptop is still a bit finicky to use at times, but that's mostly because I do weird stuff and tend to break anything that has software sooner or later. (I managed to completely mess up the update function by half-updating to rolling updates. Going back was less terrible than I expected.) [QUOTE]If these were reliant on terminal then they would be literally unusable because you have to actually put work into getting the terminal show up. Your information is severely outdated. Stop arguing your wrong point.[/QUOTE] I think better advice than "Stop arguing [...]" would be "Try again to see how it's changed, maybe in a VM or on a USB drive if you don't want to nuke your Windows install".

At IBM (smaller office) on my floor there are two people who use Linux for the desktop that I know. Almost everyone and their cat has a linux server however. I'd say we have two windows VM's for each Redhat VM, and 15 Windows for every 2 Redhat desktop. If we didn't have to support customers problems (which are mostly windows) we'd all likely be switched onto [URL="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21060.wss#resource"]IBM openclient[/URL] on RHEL. 90% of our applications are web based. The notable exception is our[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RETAIN"] retain systems[/URL] which have web views but the best clients are desktop applications. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Notes"]IBM notes[/URL] is mostly web based. As you can access your mail and calander from [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Domino"]Domino[/URL]. Just food for thought.

[QUOTE=Awesomecaek;45731734]You are confusing me. Do windows let you install things that don't come with any form of executable without the necessity of using a development environment where you could compile it? Static binaries can be unpacked from standard .zip/7zip/rar/tar.bz2 archives and launched using literally nothing but your mouse. Source code is something you can't just click on and launch in Windows either. What kind of software are you talking about, here?[/QUOTE] All the software, I've ever been given to work things like Open God Damn Office has been the source code, or fucking some random ass server in the ass backwards of Idaho. I was never given executables ever, it also doesn't help that the distros I were given were 'stable outdated versions that are superior'. I walked into the world of Linux with a bunch of fucking computer programmers. I had the worst user end experience. [editline]18th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=PredGD;45731739]then you got Mint which is based off of Ubuntu in a more minimalistic style, or xubuntu, lubuntu or whatever else there is which all comes with different desktop environments which aren't as over the top as Ubuntu's[/QUOTE] Yeah, and then you have all these different forms of the same operating system and then different packaging methods. Its like the whole Linux community is intentionally trying to slow itself down.

[QUOTE=Ybbat;45731751]At IBM (smaller office) on my floor there are two people who use Linux for the desktop that I know. Almost everyone and their cat has a linux server however. I'd say we have two windows VM's for each Redhat VM, and 15 Windows for every 2 Redhat desktop. If we didn't have to support customers problems (which are mostly windows) we'd all likely be switched onto [URL="https://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/21060.wss#resource"]IBM openclient[/URL] on RHEL. 90% of our applications are web based. The notable exception is our[URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RETAIN"] retain systems[/URL] which have web views but the best clients are desktop applications. [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Notes"]IBM notes[/URL] is mostly web based. As you can access your mail and calander from [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Lotus_Domino"]Domino[/URL]. Just food for thought.[/QUOTE] Okay? You are arguing that a tech company filled with tech savy employees can use this OS so why can't government workers? Hint, it's because they are goverment workers and are not required to be that tech savy.

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731755] Yeah, and then you have all these different forms of the same operating system and then different packaging methods. Its like the whole Linux community is intentionally trying to slow itself down.[/QUOTE] why is it bad that there are different alternatives? of course, if you wanted to change most of this yourself, you could do that as well using a minimal Debian install, Gentoo or Arch, but that's not really for end users so there's instead the simple choice of choosing another distro (or variant of a distro) which comes with what you want. personally, I've never ran into issues with the different packaging methods. the biggest offender though which I know of must be .deb which can only be installed on debian systems. it's not that big of an issue though, a quick google search will get you a package you can use pretty much everywhere

[QUOTE=Teddybeer;45731796]Because they flip their shit if you move a icon on the desktop. "I don't know much about computers so I'm not going to bother and run to the helpdesk for everything instead" is a huge problem.[/QUOTE] Because they aren't hired to be tech savy they are hired to do their job. Why should they be given even more difficult to use software? Especially considering how few people actually use linux as a desktop os compared to Mac and Windows.

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731755]All the software, I've ever been given to work things like Open God Damn Office has been the source code, or fucking some random ass server in the ass backwards of Idaho. I was never given executables ever, it also doesn't help that the distros I were given were 'stable outdated versions that are superior'. I walked into the world of Linux with a bunch of fucking computer programmers. I had the worst user end experience. [...][/QUOTE] You seem to have had a really unfortunate start then :v: Open/Libre Office is by default in the package manager of every single distribution I know, so you just have to open the Software-Center/YaST/whatever, put a check mark in front of it and click apply and it's done. The default download on the Libre Office website is also a binary package that just installs, available for both of the big package manager platforms. The source is only there if you have a weird distro that doesn't have a package manager at all or uses something extremely weird.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731770]Okay? You are arguing that a tech company filled with tech savy employees can use this OS so why can't government workers? Hint, it's because they are goverment workers and are not required to be that tech savy.[/QUOTE] You don't need to be tech savy, you just need practice. I wasn't arguing with you, I was just saying there is a place for it, especially when minimal files are stored on the client machine so if something goes wrong cleaning the image won't be an issue. Bestbuy does all it's employee interactions (stores) through Citrix or dummy clients. They login and launch a web browser. Almost no information is stored on the physical machine. What im getting to, is there is a market for dummy computers, or computers that just access applications from a server. Most large scale businesses are like this actually, thats why Office 365 and Domino are a thing.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731825]Because they aren't hired to be tech savy they are hired to do their job. Why should they be given even more difficult to use software? Especially considering how few people actually use linux as a desktop os compared to Mac and Windows.[/QUOTE] There is some level of basic computer competency that is required for desk jobs with a computer... or at least it should be. In practice it seems they hire too many people who don't actually have the right qualifications.

[QUOTE=PredGD;45731805]why is it bad that there are different alternatives? of course, if you wanted to change most of this yourself, you could do that as well using a minimal Debian install, Gentoo or Arch, but that's not really for end users so there's instead the simple choice of choosing another distro (or variant of a distro) which comes with what you want. personally, I've never ran into issues with the different packaging methods. the biggest offender though which I know of must be .deb which can only be installed on debian systems. it's not that big of an issue though, a quick google search will get you a package you can use pretty much everywhere[/QUOTE] This is more a complaint about things like under the hood, like the Graphics Driver stuff involving replacing X-Org. Different standards are fantastic when they bring something new to the table, but when its literally for one feature, you have to ask if cutting the manpower is worth it. [editline]18th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Tamschi;45731829]You seem to have had a really unfortunate start then :v: Open/Libre Office is by default in the package manager of every single distribution I know, so you just have to open the Software-Center/YaST/whatever, put a check mark in front of it and click apply and it's done. The default download on the Libre Office website is also a binary package that just installs, available for both of the big package manager platforms. The source is only there if you have a weird distro that doesn't have a package manager at all or uses something extremely weird.[/QUOTE] All I got were weird distros, hell someone tried getting me into Gentoo.

[QUOTE=Tamschi;45731849]There is some level of basic computer competency that is required for desk jobs with a computer... or at least it should be. In practice it seems they hire too many people who don't actually have the right qualifications.[/QUOTE] You are kind of the reason why I dislike Linux users. Linux isn't a basic computer competency. It's an OS for masochists. I mean do you have any notion of how competent the average employee is at dealing with computers? Should we just fire them all because apparently they all need the new qualification of dealing with such a stupidly user unfriendly OS that is used by so few people? It's like demanding every accountant to use Latin while working.

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731755]All the software, I've ever been given to work things like Open God Damn Office has been the source code, or fucking some random ass server in the ass backwards of Idaho. I was never given executables ever, it also doesn't help that the distros I were given were 'stable outdated versions that are superior'. I walked into the world of Linux with a bunch of fucking computer programmers. I had the worst user end experience.[/QUOTE] How the fuck did you mess up that badly? Jesus Christ. Honestly, package managers are one of the best things on linux. On Arch all I need to do is "pacman -S name" and it installs the program. That's it, no pressing "next" or "I agree". In your case, want libreoffice? Literally just type in "pacman -S libreoffice", you mark what libreoffice programs you want, and it installs them. No fucking around with source code or whatever you needed. Want to remove libreoffice? Type in "pacman -R libreoffice" and it's gone. No shitty uninstallation prompts. Want to find something? Maybe a video editor? "pacman -Ss video editor" Want to update the repositories and every single package on your computer? All you do is "pacman -Syu". Of course this is Arch so it's going to be using terminal (however you can install GUI clients), but I'm sure Ubuntu and whatever other Linux OSs have GUI equivalents. These repositories contain a massive amount of programs so you'll most likely find what you need. Also even the complaint about having to compile some obscure program from source isn't really that valid anymore, since its usually just 2 short commands, and will most likely be specified in a README or on the site.

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731854]This is more a complaint about things like under the hood, like the Graphics Driver stuff involving replacing X-Org. Different standards are fantastic when they bring something new to the table, but when its literally for one feature, you have to ask if cutting the manpower is worth it. [editline]18th August 2014[/editline] All I got were weird distros, hell someone trying getting me into Gentoo.[/QUOTE] The graphics drivers stuff your talking about I'm not quiet following. When you install a graphics driver you just install the package required. The extra configuration is just for tuning for nerds. [url]https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/ATI[/url] I use arch when I want to use Linux, I use windows for my desktop because it hosts my games proper and I already own a license.

[QUOTE=Swilly;45731854]This is more a complaint about things like under the hood, like the Graphics Driver stuff involving replacing X-Org. Different standards are fantastic when they bring something new to the table, but when its literally for one feature, you have to ask if cutting the manpower is worth it. [/QUOTE] when it comes to GPU drivers, I think it'd be more correct to blame Nvidia and AMD. the open source ones run fairly well, but they're not very good for 3D rendering. Nvidia's drivers are fairly good though, but yeah, if you have an AMD card that's going to become an issue. the different of variants of Ubuntu sounds more like a convenience thing in my eyes it's easy to get confused if you're new to linux, that's easy to understand. there are so much to pick from, which is linux's strength and weakness in my opinion.

I love the idea of Linux, but there's a lot of software and drivers I want to use that just aren't available anywhere but on Windows.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731886]You are kind of the reason why I dislike Linux users. Linux isn't a basic computer competency. It's an OS for masochists. I mean do you have any notion of how competent the average employee is at dealing with computers?[/QUOTE] Elementary OS is basically OSX on Linux, based on ubuntu, it's probably easier to install and definitely painless to use. Unlike windows, that has the problem of maintaining backward compatibility, all changes are done through UI and anything else can be created in a script and run once.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731886]You are kind of the reason why I dislike Linux users. Linux isn't a basic computer competency. It's an OS for masochists. I mean do you have any notion of how competent the average employee is at dealing with computers?[/QUOTE] Linux is basic computer competency if you think specifically of the more streamlined distros (Ubuntu for example). it's far from an OS for masochists, it's just that you're not used to it. if someone were to begin with linux than Windows, I'm sure they'd consider it basic knowledge

[QUOTE=Ybbat;45731922]Elementary OS is basically OSX on Linux, based on ubuntu, it's probably easier to install and definitely painless to use. Unlike windows, that has the problem of maintaining backward compatibility.[/QUOTE] Are you talking about the same Windows that is shipped with nearly every PC on the market? Because I am pretty sure more people are familiar with using that than this. [QUOTE=Ybbat;45731922]all changes are done through UI and [B]anything else can be created in a script and run once[/B].[/QUOTE] I mean can you actually conceive for one moment most people don't know what the hell that is? [QUOTE=PredGD;45731929]Linux is basic computer competency if you think specifically of the more streamlined distros (Ubuntu for example). it's far from an OS for masochists, it's just that you're not used to it. if someone were to begin with linux than Windows, I'm sure they'd consider it basic knowledge[/QUOTE] I swear to god how hard is it for you people to understand that most people barely know what an OS is. Your spectrum for what computer competency is completely skewed.

Anyone bashing Linux, create a VM in Virtual Box (Free Oracle product) and install [URL="http://elementaryos.org/"]Elementary[/URL]. Do not try to play a game on it however and expect it to work (quick anyway), that's a limitation of virtual box not being able to control your graphics adapter. [editline]18th August 2014[/editline] [QUOTE=Thlis;45731937]Are you talking about the same Windows that is shipped with nearly every PC on the market? Because I am pretty sure more people are familiar with using that than this. I mean are can you actually conceive for one moment most people don't know what the hell that is?[/QUOTE] Do you expect that a user on windows will be able to understand instructions on how to change a registry? Plus, a system admin can just SSH into their box and run the script themselves. In the enterprise most software is controlled by IT. Anything else should be a scripted installed. Meaning they would gather a script from an internal website, drop it onto their desktop and double click it.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731886]You are kind of the reason why I dislike Linux users. Linux isn't a basic computer competency. It's an OS for masochists. I mean do you have any notion of how competent the average employee is at dealing with computers? Should we just fire them all because apparently they all need the new qualification of dealing with such a stupidly user unfriendly OS that is used by so few people? It's like demanding every accountant to use Latin while working.[/QUOTE] This goes for Windows too, and it's really only about the basics. Everything else is obviously tech support's job. If you hire an accountant they should be able to open the spreadsheet software. Also, if you do office work Linux and Windows are exactly the same, unless you shell out hundreds of € for Microsoft products. Even then differences are minor (barring the new fancy toolbar new versions of Microsoft Office have). You can even style the thing in a way that a very casual user wouldn't notice the difference without poking around a bit more than what they need for work.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731937] I swear to god how hard is it for you people to understand that most people barely know what an OS is. Your spectrum for what computer competency is completely skewed.[/QUOTE] I don't think we're on the same page. if someone knows of what an OS is or not is unrelated, I'm speaking mainly about usage of linux in itself. if you were to put someone in front of a computer running linux with eOS, Ubuntu (or any of its flavours) or Mint, I'm sure you'd get a person who knows how to operate it to a basic degree after a minute or two with fiddling around. that's all you need really, unless you're a power user

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731937] I swear to god how hard is it for you people to understand that most people barely know what an OS is. Your spectrum for what computer competency is completely skewed.[/QUOTE] If someone is able to to use Windows or OSX, why wouldn't they be able to use Elementary OS? Even a senior who knows at least how to turn on a computer and how to click on the browser would be able to use something like Elementary OS. It's literally that easy. They don't need to know how to install an OS, they can simply get someone else to do that for them. If they don't know more than "i can access the internet" they wouldn't install something like Windows either.

[QUOTE=Thlis;45731937]I mean can you actually conceive for one moment most people don't know what the hell that is? [/QUOTE] I'm sure most of us Linux users understand that. Including the ones posting. What I think people are trying to say though is that we should spend the time and resources teaching people so that they can learn basic commands (which has been said isn't needed most of the time). As more people use it, hopefully, companies will see the value in investing making ways to make it more user-friendly. Call me optimistic, but if a few companies invested in producing drivers which the management allowed public distribution of it would assist greatly.

Thlis, You may not know this but [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS_X"]OSX[/URL] is unix based, and if Apple can get a bunch of idiots to use their software I'm sure Canonical can.

I dont even know what the fuss is about the terminal. Its like people see it has this scary/evil/hard to use thing that is to be avoided at all costs. When I first used Linux I really tried to avoid the terminal then after being forced to use a few times I realised that it is much more flexible and easier to use than any GUI interface. Now I love using the terminal so much that almost all the software I use is CLI only or can be used through the terminal. The terminal is not something to be feared, its to be embraced; its the most flexible interface I have ever used and is very easy to get the hang of. There is plenty of documention, tutorials, and help for using the terminal. If people acually put some time into trying to use the terminal I am sure that most people will like it more than any GUI.