Linux is ready for the desktop!

[Oleg Goldshmidt]

"Nadav Har'El" <nyh at math.technion.ac.il> writes:

> I didn't see Oleg's mail (I don't know why), but I definitely do NOT
> agree that a vanilla FC15 is ready for actual use one hour after
> install

I actually wrote (effectively) that it was ready to use 1 hour after
you've burnt the ISO. Less if you defer installing updates. ;-) Yes, I
know what I am doing, but I made the point that a housewife has NO
chance to install and configure Windows from scratch,
either. Obviously, your point that if stores sold preinstalled Linux
there would be no problem remains perfectly valid. I doubt it is a
valid business model for your next startup though (see below).

> It took me almost an hour to figure out how work around a
> NetworkManager bug and get ADSL to get reconnected during boot
> ("service network restart" worked perfectly, but it simply didn't
> work during boot).

Are you sure it was not an artefact of your expecting to be connected
within a couple of seconds and not with a bit of delay because NM took
its time? I have a noticeable delay when I start my office laptop each
morning. Have you tried disabling NM?

Another thought that occurred to me: in today's mobile world of
laptops and fondleslabs and smartphones PPPoE normally belongs on a
wireless router and not on a desktop, so maybe it _is_ already
relegated to the status of something that needs to be enabled. As I
mentioned, I don't use it myself so I don't know.
 
Let's be fair. If you do not insist on "dialerless" connection when
you arrange things with Bezeq or Hot Windows would require SW
installed by a technician. And I do not believe the "dialer" would
ever work from boot. In this sense Windows is not "ready" either. Of
course, a technician would have no clue how to configure Linux and
would refuse to touch it and would (falsely) claim it was unsupported,
so there is a practical difference in this respect.

> It took me about an hour to set up all the "not-so-legal" yum
> repositories and figure out which packages to download to enable
> playing of music and video. And so on, and so on, and these hours
> add up.

This is surprising, because my Fedoras come with a variety of music
and movie players upon installation. I think the only sound thing I
installed specifically once was a recording app
(amarok?). Preinstalled Windows actually don't come with such
packages, AFAIK. At least my father's computer that was bought
preinstalled from a major Israeli retailer didn't. Id say that Linux
is more "ready" in this sense, not less.

The Fedora installer lets you review the components (groups and
specific packages, with rather useful and concise help) before
installing - I am guessing you skipped that step (chose "workstation"
and didn't review)?

> Heck, this is what they do with Windows (who installs Windows on
> their own nowadays??)

Whoever got their computer borked, e.g., because AV was not updated or
was not running for a while, which happens quite often. ;-) No one
does it oneself - professional help is required. And even then it is
possible only if you got - and kept - the installation media and the
dozen or so CDs with the necessary drivers when you took your
preinstalled computer from the store.
 
> so why not with Linux?

I remember Adi Stav making a very well phrased comment quite a few
years ago: the typical consumer does not know what Linux is, or what
Windows is. He or she knows what a "computer" is. The observation is
spot on and as relevant now as it was 10 years ago, and it is exactly
the answer. [1]

I wouldn't expect a normal person from the street ask oneself the
question "what OS should I choose?" If there were a shop that sold
preinstalled Linux to housewives they would never know. At least until
a grandkid suggested communicating via Messenger or something. Or
until they found out that their bank's site or kupat holim's site
didn't work with Firefox.

I believe the various smartphones don't help too much in this respect
(re the argument about iOS and Android making people realize there is
more to the Universe than Microsoft): lots of people want "an iPhone"
the way they want "a computer", without thinking "Apple" or "iOS" as
opposed to "Google" and "Android". At most there is awareness of
Samsung vs. Ericsson vs. Nokia vs. LG vs. HTC, but whether the Samsung
is Android or Bada, or whether the HTC is Android or M$ is lost in
translation. It is no different from realizing there are computers
made by Dell, Toshiba, Sony, and HP. When I was shopping for a
smartphone I observed quite a few people choosing a phone and not a
single one was aware of or interested in the fact that this LG was
Android and that Samsung was Bada, etc. I was the only one around who
insisted on switching on the candidate handset and doing a minimal
"test drive" (and only one shop in 4 different cities actually
allowed it), but I am not a typical consumer...

I am afraid you may be asking for too much.

[1] A recent anecdote to support this: a friend who asked me
    a question about her old laptop had - and still has - no clue that
    it was a 10+ year old PPC-based Mac. I had no idea from just
    talking to her, either, until I actually saw it. She is as
    generally intelligent as anyone but it would be rather futile to
    explain the difference between Mac and Windows, PPC and Intel, or
    why SW her mother uses wouldn't work on her translucent turquoise
    i-thingy.  The dreck works, by the way, in the sense that the 10+
    year old browser starts up and allows logging into web mail,
    albeit slowly - my help amounted to plugging a network cable into
    the right orifice. It's "a computer"...

-- 
Oleg Goldshmidt | pub at goldshmidt.org