How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name

[lowendlinux]

Are they still relevant in 2015?
I thought we had SJWs to make the internet annoying now.



How so?
Poor people usually use a 2005 HP Pavillion with Windows XP.
And they usually don't overlap with #4, below.



...and,

4) Engineers, mathematicians, students, people in technical professions.

I believe those are make up the largest Linux user base.

Then again, lots and lots of them use Macs, some are Windows aficionados, but Linux systems are huge there.
And for a reason: industry standard tools come in a central repository, preconfigured with all of their extensions - all TeXLive packages, nearly every Python or Octave module is there, et cetera.



To use any system, after all

Not really, you actually have to work to use a Linux system you can't just install office and go.


Of those technical folks how many are using Linux on their home box vs how many are using it on a work cluster?

 

[maflynn]

Not really, you actually have to work to use a Linux system you can't just install office and go.

And that's why its largely failed to grab a hold of the public's interest. They don't want to tinker with the system t make it work, or edit a bunch of conf file after an upgrade. Ubuntu has done the best at trying to make the experience as simple and turnkey as possible but even so, they've not really helped move the needle in terms of market share.

 

[lowendlinux]

And that's why its largely failed to grab a hold of the public's interest. They don't want to tinker with the system t make it work, or edit a bunch of conf file after an upgrade. Ubuntu has done the best at trying to make the experience as simple and turnkey as possible but even so, they've not really helped move the needle in terms of market share.

Ubuntu is trying to tread a fine line to make it easier to use for the new person makes it harder to use for the old person. Ubuntu does some great things then they step on their crank and erase it, they're human after all. There's never going to be a "year of the Linux desktop" and I really don't want there to be one. I think Canonical needs to stop pushing that and push convergence and mobile and leave RH and SUSE covering HPC/Server/Corporate IT. Heck I dunno whats in store for Linux I just know what I don't like and what I think is cool.

 

[villicodelirant]

Not really, you actually have to work to use a Linux system you can't just install office and go.

And that's why its largely failed to grab a hold of the public's interest. They don't want to tinker with the system t make it work, or edit a bunch of conf file after an upgrade.

That's simply... not true. I mean, it's just not true.

OpenOffice works pretty much like Office, Firefox and Thunderbird work the same as, er, Firefox and Thunderbird and please don't tell me Nautilus is significantly harder to use than other file managers.

In fact, my 60 year old mother has sort of... impounded my old laptop with Ubuntu LTS to do her typing and emails before I could get around to installing Windows on it and has never once complained... while at the same time being apparently very confused by Windows 8.

As I said before in this thread, this is not 2002 and you no longer have to vi /etc/X11R6/XF86Config to death to have a working X session.
In fact, I am pretty positive I never touched a configuration file in the lifespan of my Ubuntu 14.04 install, which means ~2 years.

Of those technical folks how many are using Linux on their home box vs how many are using it on a work cluster?

On... their computer.
Where they do their work.
Which probably means on their workstation at the office and their laptop.

Since you point that out, I believe there are a few Linux machine with XMBC being used as media centers out there as well.

I mean, in 2005 I hated Stallmanites who tried to force everybody on the internet to install Gentoo Stage 1 as much as the next guy and I don't want to sound like them, but the idea that Ubuntu or Fedora don't make a more than acceptable desktop system for the average user is really hard to justify.

My city's university runs some weird form of Ubuntu in their libraries and humanities students seem to write their papers on them and troll Instagram just fine, what more proof do you want?

 

[maflynn]

That's simply... not true. I mean, it's just not true.

That is true, I had to get a lot of work done to get Fedora up and running on my MBP back in the day. I'm only speaking from experience. Ubuntu also needed some tweaking though it did work out of the box, I was not getting the video drivers working properly.

Upgrading both was a lot of work, and I finally gave up and reinstalled the OS, it was far easier to start over.

 

[villicodelirant]

That is true, I had to get a lot of work done to get Fedora up and running on my MBP back in the day.
I'm only speaking from experience. Ubuntu also needed some tweaking though it did work out of the box, I was not getting the video drivers working properly.

Upgrading both was a lot of work, and I finally gave up and reinstalled the OS, it was far easier to start over.

Well, you are confusing lack of hardware support with inherent difficulty of use.

I was talking about the latter, of course.

The point I'm trying to get across is that when it works (which we can equate with "when your machine on this list: http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/) Ubuntu is usable.

Of course if your hardware is not - or poorly - supported you are SOL - hey, Mavericks isn't great fun on an HP Pavillion with Atheros card either

There were times not so far behind when you had to hurt yourself very badly with configuration files for any hardware, even of the "officially supported" kind.

I can't speak for MBPs (I question your sanity for trying to install Fedora on an MBP anyway ), but most regular business laptops I have encountered (read: Thinkpads, Dell Latitude and Vostro, HP Elites, Toshiba Satellites) just work.

 

[maflynn]

Well, you are confusing lack of hardware support with inherent difficulty of use.

No I posted this:

They don't want to tinker with the system t make it work, or edit a bunch of conf file after an upgrade

Consumers do not want to use vi or pico to muck around with system files to fix or configure a system.

Consumers want a turnkey computer, and Linux does not give that too them, though as I noted Ubuntu is best at approaching that goal. I never said anything about inherently difficult.

 

[lowendlinux]

That's simply... not true. I mean, it's just not true.

OpenOffice works pretty much like Office, Firefox and Thunderbird work the same as, er, Firefox and Thunderbird and please don't tell me Nautilus is significantly harder to use than other file managers.

In fact, my 60 year old mother has sort of... impounded my old laptop with Ubuntu LTS to do her typing and emails before I could get around to installing Windows on it and has never once complained... while at the same time being apparently very confused by Windows 8.

As I said before in this thread, this is not 2002 and you no longer have to vi /etc/X11R6/XF86Config to death to have a working X session.
In fact, I am pretty positive I never touched a configuration file in the lifespan of my Ubuntu 14.04 install, which means ~2 years.



On... their computer.
Where they do their work.
Which probably means on their workstation at the office and their laptop.

Since you point that out, I believe there are a few Linux machine with XMBC being used as media centers out there as well.

I mean, in 2005 I hated Stallmanites who tried to force everybody on the internet to install Gentoo Stage 1 as much as the next guy and I don't want to sound like them, but the idea that Ubuntu or Fedora don't make a more than acceptable desktop system for the average user is really hard to justify.

My city's university runs some weird form of Ubuntu in their libraries and humanities students seem to write their papers on them and troll Instagram just fine, what more proof do you want?

It simply is true Open/Libre/WPS are not MS Office and that's what people want whether they'd work is irrelevant. I've gotten normal people to use Linux too but it's for boxes are a specific to a certain thing whether that be a home server or streaming box but to use it as a general purpose it's generally a no-go. Remember because you have never touched a config file doesn't mean that no one has I'm in config files almost daily but that's the way I prefer it plain test is easy. I actually have a pretty strong Stallman bent in me but really only for education I don't think we should teach kids proprietary tools no matter how much simpler it'd be for everybody. I think school computers should be Pi's running Linux end of story. I also think that if you're going to use Linux as a desktop OS you should at least build Gentoo from stage one, build LFS, or run Slackware for a couple years these will actually teach you Linux in a nice hands on way. I think the "dumbing" down of Linux will hurt the community and developers in the long run, if we can't enforce LSB then folks need to know how to install from tar balls tar -xvf/-xzvf/-ajvf .configure, make, make install are just not that hard. Linux is great fun but it's simply not for everybody and I don't think we should bend it to try to make it for everybody.

 

[villicodelirant]

No I posted this:
Consumers do not want to use vi or pico to muck around with system files to fix or configure a system.

And they never have to as long as the system is supported ("Ubuntu certified")

 

[villicodelirant]

It simply is true Open/Libre/WPS are not MS Office and that's what people want whether they'd work is irrelevant.

I don't want to make this sound like an ad hominem argument, but... are you American?

In Europe governments, universities and administrations tend to use OpenOffice a lot (probably partly because of how some regulations about how tax money is to be spent - I can go into the gruesome details in all their stupidity if you want - put machines with Office bundled at a disadvantage).
The average Joe, possibly as a consequence, seems to be familiar with it in my experience.

I actually have a pretty strong Stallman bent in me but really only for education I don't think we should teach kids proprietary tools no matter how much simpler it'd be for everybody. I think school computers should be Pi's running Linux end of story.

To be honest, I can't see the advantage in that, as long as the curriculum places a strong emphasis on foundations.
I don't think that whether kids use Excel or LibreOffice to experiment with a spreadsheet changes much.

 

[lowendlinux]

I don't want to make this sound like an ad homine argument, but... are you American?

In Europe governments, universities and administrations tend to use OpenOffice a lot (probably partly because of how some regulations about how tax money is to be spent - I can go into the gruesome details in all their stupidity if you want - put machines with Office bundled at a disadvantage).
The average Joe, possibly as a consequence, seems to be familiar with it in my experience.




To be honest, I can't see the advantage in that, as long as the curriculum places a strong emphasis on foundations.
I don't think that whether kids use Excel or LibreOffice to experiment with a spreadsheet changes much.

I'm an American living in Europe married to a lady working for a university and she most assuredly doesn't use Open Office at work. If you can't see a benefit in not teaching kids a proprietary system I really can't help you.

 

[Renzatic]

You'll have to blame that on GOG.

Probably. Though they do make a point of making their games easily available (if unsupported) for distros beyond Ubuntu/Debian, which means they can't conveniently pack everything into a .deb file.

There really does need to be an easily launched, distro independent executable/installer available. Packed .sh scripts and tarballs can fill that position somewhat, but they both still require a modicum of terminal work to use. This isn't something that should happen in a primarily GUI based system. The terminal should be the exclusive domain of the power user, not a requirement for doing everyday simple things all the other OSes handle graphically.

 

[villicodelirant]

There really does need to be an easily launched, distro independent executable/installer available.

Sure.
It exists.
It's called .deb.
Now persuade Fedora to use it.
Or persuade Ubuntu to use RPM.
Or invent a third, incompatible package format and... you see where this is going?

I'm an American living in Europe married to a lady working for a university and she most assuredly doesn't use Open Office at work.

I wasn't talking about your wife specifically
Were she a French Gendarme or did she work for the City of Bologna, she would.

However, back to the point, in my purely empirical experience LibreOffice is usually well accepted by working people if that's what their IT department gives them.

I see how that could be different in another cultural environment (e.g. Southern vs. Northern Europe vs. US).

If you can't see a benefit in not teaching kids a proprietary system I really can't help you.

I may be blind but in fact I really don't see any advantage in teaching any system in particular, that's what instruction manuals are for.

At the middle and high school level a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, even Lotus for Windows 3.1 would suffice, I guess.

I would be happier to know that the mathematics underlying whatever experiment the kids do with/on the spreadsheet are explained well and that at the end of the day the kids can go home with a deeper understanding of the subject.

I am somewhat irked by the dominance of Mathematica in higher education, not because it's proprietary but because the language is proprietary and basically useless outside of Wolfram products (beside, in my so humble opinion, being kind of sucky).

 

[Renzatic]

Sure.
It exists.
It's called .deb.
Now persuade Fedora to use it.
Or persuade Ubuntu to use RPM.
Or invent a third, incompatible package format and... you see where this is going?

This is the one biggest problem with Linux, and one of the major reasons why developers were so scared to support it all these years.
They're only now getting around it by focusing exclusively on one distro, and letting the people on the others figure things out on their own.

 

[lowendlinux]

Sure.
It exists.
It's called .deb.
Now persuade Fedora to use it.
Or persuade Ubuntu to use RPM.
Or invent a third, incompatible package format and... you see where this is going?



I wasn't talking about your wife specifically
Were she a French Gendarme or did she work for the City of Bologna, she would.

However, back to the point, in my purely empirical experience LibreOffice is usually well accepted by working people if that's what their IT department gives them.

I see how that could be different in another cultural environment (e.g. Southern vs. Northern Europe vs. US).



I may be blind but in fact I really don't see any advantage in teaching any system in particular, that's what instruction manuals are for.

At the middle and high school level a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, even Lotus for Windows 3.1 would suffice, I guess.

I would be happier to know that the mathematics underlying whatever experiment the kids do with/on the spreadsheet are explained well and that at the end of the day the kids can go home with a deeper understanding of the subject.

I am somewhat irked by the dominance of Mathematica in higher education, not because it's proprietary but because the language is proprietary and basically useless outside of Wolfram products (beside, in my so humble opinion, being kind of sucky).

Actually Linux Standards Base states it's .rpm but the packaging isn't the problem it the libraries it calls, path locations etc. There's a lot going on in Linux right now and when it settles out the Linux foundation will have to take a look at LSB again.

Libreoffice is a fine office suite and will do everything that everyone wants with rare exceptions but it is not MS Office. On my system I have WPS / Libre / and I've got web apps for office online.Libreoffice can screw up a PP slide faster than I can but it's fine going the other way. WPS is really compatible but it's really ugly, and I don't really trust closed source stuff from China.

 

[lowendlinux]

Sure.
It exists.
It's called .deb.
Now persuade Fedora to use it.
Or persuade Ubuntu to use RPM.
Or invent a third, incompatible package format and... you see where this is going?



I wasn't talking about your wife specifically
Were she a French Gendarme or did she work for the City of Bologna, she would.

However, back to the point, in my purely empirical experience LibreOffice is usually well accepted by working people if that's what their IT department gives them.

I see how that could be different in another cultural environment (e.g. Southern vs. Northern Europe vs. US).



I may be blind but in fact I really don't see any advantage in teaching any system in particular, that's what instruction manuals are for.

At the middle and high school level a spreadsheet is a spreadsheet, even Lotus for Windows 3.1 would suffice, I guess.

I would be happier to know that the mathematics underlying whatever experiment the kids do with/on the spreadsheet are explained well and that at the end of the day the kids can go home with a deeper understanding of the subject.

I am somewhat irked by the dominance of Mathematica in higher education, not because it's proprietary but because the language is proprietary and basically useless outside of Wolfram products (beside, in my so humble opinion, being kind of sucky).

OK since the MoBo in my desktop got replaced which seems to have messed up my previous install I installed 15.10 and am going to give it a month to see if I can like Ubuntu as much as you do.

 

[Renzatic]

OK since the MoBo in my desktop got replaced which seems to have messed up my previous install I installed 15.10 and am going to give it a month to see if I can like Ubuntu as much as you do.

It's still Linux, so if you like that, you'll like Ubuntu.

Though I'd recommend going with one of the flavor distros like Gnome or Kubuntu. The DE in vanilla Ubuntu is absolutely terrible in my opinion.

 

[lowendlinux]

It's still Linux, so if you like that, you'll like Ubuntu.

Though I'd recommend going with one of the flavor distros like Gnome or Kubuntu. The DE in vanilla Ubuntu is absolutely terrible in my opinion.

I like Unity and have run it on my default distro. My problem has always been that I can't edit things like the resolv.conf for some reason or it'll pull bumblebee when installing nVidia drivers.

 

[Renzatic]

I like Unity and have run it on my default distro. My problem has always been that I can't edit things like the resolv.conf for some reason or it'll pull bumblebee when installing nVidia drivers.

From what I can gather, Ubuntu installing Bumblebee automatically is (or was) considered a bug, but it looks like it's easily fixed.

This might be the reason why I didn't keep Linux running when I first got my new computer. When I'd install the proprietary drivers previously, it'd give me a black screen.

 

[lowendlinux]

From what I can gather, Ubuntu installing Bumblebee automatically is (or was) considered a bug, but it looks like it's easily fixed.

This might be the reason why I didn't keep Linux running when I first got my new computer. When I'd install the proprietary drivers previously, it'd give me a black screen.

I can deal with bugs and can uninstall stuff I really want to figure out what drives the love that the Ubuntu desktop deems to engender. I kinda wonder if it's a Pink Floyd thing you either get it or you don't and I need to test that long term I've not given Ubuntu more than 72 hours to win me over because I'm the short attention span sort

 

[Renzatic]

I can deal with bugs and can uninstall stuff I really want to figure out what drives the love that the Ubuntu desktop deems to engender. I kinda wonder if it's a Pink Floyd thing you either get it or you don't and I need to test that long term I've not given Ubuntu more than 72 hours to win me over because I'm the short attention span sort

In my opinion, there are two reasons to love Ubuntu over the other distros. It's more newbie friendly, and it has better commercial software support out of the box. That latter reason is why I decided to go with it instead of Arch or Fedora, which sometimes require you to jump through some extra hoops to get things running comparatively.

Well, that and the fact I'm still not super ninja awesome at navigating and troubleshooting Linux yet.

Considering how well versed in Linux you are, I honestly can't think of any reasons for you to prefer Ubuntu over Arch.

 

[lowendlinux]

In my opinion, there are two reasons to love Ubuntu over the other distros. It's more newbie friendly, and it has better commercial software support out of the box. That latter reason is why I decided to go with it instead of Arch or Fedora, which sometimes require you to jump through some extra hoops to get things running comparatively.

Well, that and the fact I'm still not super ninja awesome at navigating and troubleshooting Linux yet.

Considering how well versed in Linux you are, I honestly can't think of any reasons for you to prefer Ubuntu over Arch.

The thing is I'm not Linux smart I'm Gentoo and Arch smart and they aren't Linux that's why I read books. The other problem is if something doesn't work the way I think it ought to it sorta pisses me off and I kill it. It's generally no kidding faster for me to install Arch that it is to figure out Ubuntu which is why I've never seriously used it. I'm just not goiing to google and figure out the Ubuntu way when I can have my way in an Arch install in 20 minutes or when I wake up in the morning with Gentoo. i'm now going to figure out the Ubuntu way

 

[Renzatic]

The thing is I'm not Linux smart I'm Gentoo and Arch smart and they aren't Linux that's why I read books.

I'd say that you're Linux smart, but your used to dealing with it via the Arch way. All the distros are basically different variations laid on top of one basic design. Debian might do things one way, Red-Hat another, but at the end of the day, they're both Linux. They'll run the same programs, and work from the same libraries. You're doing the exact same things in a different way.

The other problem is if something doesn't work the way I think it ought to it sorta pisses me off and I kill it. It's generally no kidding faster for me to install Arch that it is to figure out Ubuntu which is why I've never seriously used it. I'm just not goiing to google and figure out the Ubuntu way when I can have my way in an Arch install in 20 minutes or when I wake up in the morning with Gentoo. i'm now going to figure out the Ubuntu way

I'd say that the Ubuntu Way would consist of you learning the syntax of a new package manager, and navigating the few little twists and tweaks Canonical chooses to use to implement their preferred vision of Linux compared to Arch. There won't be massive amount of differences, but there will be enough to piss you off just enough because it doesn't work the way you're used to.

This has been my experience jumping between Fedora and Ubuntu. They're more similar than they are dissimilar, but still different enough that you'll have to do some research.

 

[the8thark]

Did someone recommend that combination of things?

Scott Forstall would have if he did not have his ass removed fron Apple.