Good article. I have one note -- if you are using a 64 bit version and like to watch flash videos (i.e., youtube, hulu, etc.) do not turn up any desktop effects or visual effects. There is a bug that prevents you from pressing any buttons on flash videos if you have desktop effects on. It works fine with desktop effects off.
Good point. And to add to that, to the best of my knowledge all Windows and OSX users are forced to use 32 bit browsers in order to have a working flash anyways, so if you limit yourself to 32 bit browsers you will have no issues and you will be getting the same thing as the Windows and OSX people.
I solved this problem on my box by installing the proprietary 64-bit alpha Adobe Flash plugin which is linked in the article; buttons worked and I haven't encountered problems yet.
oh, this is the kind of stuff that turns so many people off from using linux as a desktop. I just need my OS to fricking work. No tinker this, tinker that, turn off my network interface before starting vmware, otherwise kde will crash... etc. et.c etc.
Linux is great for servers, where you usually have two apps, your server, and/or the database.
Anything more complicated and it cries like a little baby.
And yes, servers are a lot simpler than desktops, and linux lost the battle for the desktop by a long shot.
I guess, it is doing well in mobile, but only after heavy modifications and hand holding (android, and kindle are based in a linux os).
Let me guess: you just bought Windows 7 and you're trying to persuade yourself that the ridiculous amount of money you put down for that piece of software was well spent. Not too far off the mark?
In any event, this is not a case of "getting what you pay for"; this is almost certainly a bug in Flash, not in the free software stack. In other words, I don't suppose you believe that Flash player works better on Windows because you paid for your copy of Flash player, do you? (On the other hand, I guess someone who would buy Microsoft Windows on the precept that "you get what you pay for" might just be foolish enough to shell out cash for Flash player, too.)
Yes very far off the mark.
I actually have Windows XP at home for which I didn't pay any money (work license), a Macbook at work, and a Linux Machine (Ubuntu 9.04) at work.
Used mostly Windows, + Linux (for some server side).
Tried to use Ubuntu for day to day work, and it was like death from 1000s cuts. There was not just a major thing not working, most things worked fine, but there were so many little anoyances that at the end it made the whole experience very frustrating.
I am actually new to Mac Os, but I find it pretty decent. I switched to it, and just use the Linux machine to get some parts of my project compiling.
And I still use XP at home.
So, I have used all of three of them with an open minded, and I find that Linux is the worst to use on day to day basis.
As with most other things, it depends on the person.
I have a suspicion, for instance, that your definition of "day to day basis" is very different than mine. The majority of my time on my computers is spent in a screen session in a terminal. In such a setting, Linux passes both Windows[1] and OS X[2] fairly easily (in my eyes).
I'm not going to pretend that this is anything like what most people would do with their computers. But it's what I do with mine, and it's plenty for me. It's also why I don't understand debates about "the year of Linux on the desktop" - I don't really care if it is accessible to or useful for people other than me, so long as it meets my needs, and it meets my needs quite nicely.
[1] I know there's Cygwin, but even after that you still don't have a package manager.
[2] I know it's a Unix, but even after that you still don't have a package manager. It has, e.g. Macports and Fink, but I've never had much success with either (although I'll concede I haven't made much of an effort).
I also have a Vista at home ... using it as a media station and for experimenting with windows-only stuff.
I also used a Mac OS X for a whole year.
I still prefer Linux though. Yes, at first it seems like it is "death from a 1000 cuts". But when I'm switching OSes for my day to day work I find that I miss Linux more often than not.
I don't have a lot of money so I need free development tools that are decent for the kind of work I do. I also like the support given by some communities. And for that Linux is the best ... Ubuntu/Debian have the best and most properly maintained repository of open-source packages. Everything is one "apt-get install" away.
In Windows it's really killing me that I have to manually hunt and even compile my packages. And then make them work within my Cygwin environment, and then find ways for them to inter-operate with Windows-specific utilities. In Mac OS X I've used MacPorts but it's not a properly maintained repository ... the sources can take forever to compile, I've encountered situations were the dependencies where not resolved, and many software packages are just too old. And it's not a default and you end up with two Python interpreters, two Perls, two GCC compilers, etc...
Some say perfection is in the details. Mac OS X is certainly an improvement in some areas, but I remember using Tiger ... the default terminal app was not having multiple tabs. And when the wireless wasn't connecting to a router for some reason (when others laptops in the area did), I could find no way to debug the problem. I also did Java programming, and it was really killing me not having Java 6 on Mac OS X. And when it finally came out, it was incompatible with Tiger.
The parent is definitely not far off the mark.
If you had to shell out the price of windows or for that Macbook from work, you would feel the burden of paying for something that's only marginally better that a Linux distribution, an OS that you can actually own (as opposed to just owning the rights to use it), for free.
The only desktop software I would actually pay money for is Photoshop. Too bad that it doesn't work on Linux, but while working for Adobe the people there were actually quite open to Linux, so a Linux port is quite possible in the future.
I do not agree with this. I dual boot linux and windows and I have had much better experience with Linux and groan when I have to boot up into Windows because I need some silly windows only software.
This is a minor issue that is probably due to a faulty flash installation provided by Adobe and is easily handled. Oh and by the way we are talking about running flash on a 64 bit platform which has been problematic for all OSs including OSX and Windows.
You tend to hear more about the Linux issues just because Linux has been far ahead of Windows and OSX in 64 bit support so Linux users ran up against the Adobe foot-dragging much earlier.
Linux is great for a desktop if you like to tinker. If you have time and inclination to tinker with your desktop OS.
If you don't like to tinker with your workstation, and you just want a good GUI and a bash prompt to get some fucking work done, using Ubuntu for a day will make you cry in frustration. You just waste so much time.
I've spent way too much time the last two weeks trying to get a second monitor to work through a DP port - no such support. It sucks. I plugged it in, the monitors are not detected, install some different drivers, still not work. Tinker tinker tinker. I go out and buy a cable adaptor, see if BOTH monitors on DP will matter... I buy the wrong cable. Crap. Back to the store, they don't have DP->DVI cables. Crap. Order one online. Wait for a few days. Try every possible combination of settings and ports - max resolution 1280 * 800. All told I think I've spent about 16 hours tinkering with my Ubuntu desktop for various minor problems that bugged me. I could have been working that time if I had a Mac desktop.
And don't even get me started on IntelliJ and Java in Gnome.
Some people actually enjoy debugging these issues - but me, I'd rather be working productively. I love Linux for servers, it is totally easy to use there. For desktops... unless you have strange dependencies, there is no valid reason not to just use OS X. PCs are only cheaper if the value of your time is zero. I tend to value my time slightly higher than zero.
I am struggling with OS X a lot, too. I think it is also a matter of perception: if there is a problem on Linux, people say "ah, it is the tinker OS again", if there is a problem on OS X, people say "hm, I paid 1000$ for this, so it must be my fault, not the OS".
One important thing is to make sure you buy the right hardware for Linux - OS X does the same, it only ships for a very limited selection of hardware. I have had Ubuntu on my notebook for years and hardly ever need to tinker.
There are always things to tinker with, even on OS X - it is just important that you don't have to tinker with the stuff that enables you to work.
Similar issues, although in my case 2 monitors work immediately (dual DV-I card), it's getting my 3rd monitor running simultaneously which has left me in xorg.conf hell for 2 days without much to show for it, besides a few more gray hairs.
Admittedly, getting the 3rd monitor running on Windows 7 wasn't a picnic, but I got it within an hour or so - with the ability to switch to s-video to watch hulu on my old tv, and never had to manually edit a config file.
The "problem" with manually editing a config file is that you've no idea what the options are, which means research - likely using a separate application. I use config files for my dev work all the time, but not for anything anyone actually has to change besides me (or another dev on the same project). While I appreciate that I CAN get behind the scenes to get something working, I don't really WANT to.
Edit: As an aside, Ubuntu Karmic Remix on my EEE is an absolute delight. Installed perfectly, works perfectly.
Yeah, I have this preconceived notion that I can plug in my usb wlan stick and have it work. Silly me.
And I'm no Windows / OSX fanboy. I do have a Linux box at home. But pretending that Linux works fine on the desktop and that people are the problem is not going to do anyone any good. In fact, if that's really the case, the obvious solution is to offer the option of Windows-like behaviour wherever these preconceived notions exist.
I have two wlan USB sticks that work out of the box on Ubuntu and Debian (I wasn't even careful about that when buying them). In fact, those two sticks I own don't work at all on Vista (they were designed for XP), and don't work on XP without installing the drivers first.
Ever tried installing Mac OS X on a non-Apple computer? Ever tried using hardware that doesn't specifically mentions "compatible with Mac OS X" on the box?
Try it sometimes.
The solution to your problems is to find Linux-compatible hardware. People do that for Apple computers, I don't get it why it is such a big deal for Linux, but IMHO since Linux does work out-of-the-box with most hardware devices, you'd expect it to work with everything. Well, sometimes it doesn't.
Linux has many other problems but hardware drivers are not it.
I've had the same experience with one of those cheap "mobile broadband" USB dongles that have flooded the market.
Windows: plug in the dongle, wait for it to pretend to be a CD drive and auto-run an installer, wait for the flaky Vodafone installer to put on various drivers and bits of proprietary software (took about 15 minutes on my machine), reboot, plug the thing back in again, wait for Windows to recognise it, load up the slow Vodafone software and connect.
Ubuntu: plug in the dongle, wait for a dialog box to appear, select your country and provider (eg. UK, Vodafone), connect.
I find with Ubuntu that if it works, it works better than Windows. But if your piece of hardware doesn't work straight away, it'll be a bugger to get working.
Uhm, it is a problem I have had to deal with on occasion. It is a problem that I've seen other Linux users deal with regularly. I have a non-techie friend who uses Linux and she calls me about every 3rd kernel update because some driver got messed up and there is no easy solution. It is a problem if someone wants to switch to Linux and suddenly some hardware is not working properly or at all.
The fact that OSX and Vista have the same problem does not mean that it's not a problem. In fact, driver trouble is one of the main reasons that Vista turned into a big failure.
But that's not really even the point. The point is that they are problems. You might have run into different ones, but whatever, they're definitely there and this attitude that if anything goes wrong it's the users fault and if people would just be more open minded and get rid of their Windows preconception everything would be totally fine is not helping.
This is actually a pretty decent list. I use a good portion of them on most of my Ubuntu machines. Also a few apps I had never heard of: Universal Applets and the brain stuffs.
