meggerman for 99% on this forum no problem for 99% of the people changing over to Linux they have no clue .You have to understand what is a simple fix for you or the rest of us here .
windows only people have not a clue of what they need to go look at Ubuntu help section you will questions that you or anyone else here would not give a second thought to fix but for them it is keep them from changing over .
You can have anyone use the most complicated product there is as long as you make not complicated to use .
Exactly right. To answer the question in the title, I think we just have to consider how Microsoft got so much bigger than it should be. And the short answer is, by being what people use at work. And that was accomplished not by being the best OS but by marketing, and via the way they packaged / bundled different products to appeal to the laziest admins, as well as some sleazy tactics you may have heard about.
So my answer to the OP's title question is "partly, just because Microsoft got there first, but mainly because we live in a world in which so many people were willing to settle for Microsoft in the first place."
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Thanks for such a good reply, you have a good point, that's one possibility that I missed. I was actually working in a company that had every year more and more developers on Linux. The only reason was though, that the Git plugin for Eclipse was much faster than on Windows and that has made work quite easier. But everybody else was against it, and mostly for a good reason. Almost all other departments in the company were relying heavily on multiple Microsoft services that were connected very well with each other. And exactly there lies the problem with Linux again.... no widely used standards. Everybody in Linux community seems to think they are the smartest and that their way should be adopted. Microsoft has again managed to analyze what that group of people needs and they have made the tools, which Linux community can't because there is no one that has the final word to make decisions/standards.
BTW Check this video. It a very good summary what else is going wrong/right in FOSS world.
Regards
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Thanks to Teksyndicate's videos, I was very close to making the switch this time.
In my case I get tearing or other display issues with the default AMD driver. No problem: install the propietary driver, reboot - no picture. Safe boot, uninstall, go through a wiki, install driver, configure display through command line, reboot - no picture.
It appears I need to configure it specifically for dual display. This gets old really fast, when Windows doesn't really care what displays you have plugged in. You can change the amount, position and orientation of displays on the fly.
Bought a Garmin bike GPS and wanted to have a local program to plan/edit GPS tracks. Spent about 2 hours searching, installing, hacking to have a poor replacement.
New printer with wifi printing/scanning, had a short look into what would be involved and decided I've had enough of the fiddling and gave up.
I made the switch and as an experienced PC user I nearly gave up trying to setup Ubuntu Gnome how I wanted. Trying to google answers often came up with results from several years ago that did not apply and it was frustrating.
I stuck to my guns and learned what I needed to get it all setup and I will never go back to Windows again.
I think that initial barrier is the hardest part. If you're a real computer newbie you might be ok using Ubuntu straight out of the install with the build in apps.
When you have some expirence and have a list of what you expect from a PC based on what you do on Windows. It can be tricky.
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Gnome figures out dual displays pretty well. Use gnome in ubuntu and you'll be fine.
KDE is another one that knows what it's doing
I like to think of the difference between Open Source software and Closed Source software like this:
MS Office/Windows is like a pack of Marlboro's - All premade, and nicely packed in a sealed package. The flavor and effect is the same everytime. And, the health effects are worse than the Vaping solution.
LibreOffice/Linux is like a Vape pen - You can get a premade one. All ready to use from the package. Or, you can build the vape pen your self. all customized and everything. But, you know what went into it and the experience will be different for each person. aka : prebuilt packages for software vs compiling yourself the same software with your own tweaks. The vaping solution gives you that nicotine kick with out inhaling that Carcinogens.
The problem with that analogy is we know exactly what is in Cigarettes and Vaporizers. As for the difference between Open-Source Software and Proprietary. The difference between them is feature set. and of course access to the source code. Overall regular people don't care if the software is open source or not, they care if it's functional. Also people care about "The Brand".
this is just one video Wendell posted recently, but it just shows how stupid people are. this is sort of irrelevant towards the Open Source versus the Proprietary conversation, but my overall point is regular people don't care if it's open source, or not. or any of that technical stuff that WE may know about.. they care about the brand and if it's functional. there's people out there that don't even know there's alternatives to the stuff they use..
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- People do not like change
- Missing software alternatives
Few days ago my father's had to buy a new laptop and it came with Ubuntu. Since I am half a world away to install windows, I wanted to at least try to find some equivalents to programs he uses. This is a screenshot of (un)available software:
(look at tabs)
He ended up getting Windows 7 since every alternative that a ubuntu friend installed was missing at least 1 of 3 top features/functions he needed from each program... plus no architectural software was available anyway.
wine ? virtual box ?
I agree, in principle more people using Linux allows for better paid and opensource software to be released.
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I actually got in contact with the library and a few places in my town and I have like 20 or 30 spare laptops laying around from when I worked at a computer shop. I was supposed to fix them all over time and bring them back but before that happened the shop went bankrupt by it's own devices.
Anyways I'm going to try and set up a program here for if you NEED a laptop, come and get one. You can learn how ubuntu works and just go on an adventure in it.
They aren't gaming laptops by any means, but you could play minecraft, league of legends, that sorta stuff.
I just thought that would be a cool note to put in here.
Understandable... it lists Konqueror as a file manager alternative... how old is that list. (fyi dolphin is KDEs file manager, its comparable to windows explorer but has more features)
The key really is the architectural software, theres architectural software out there but sometimes there isnt a good alternative unless you willing to learn new software as you simple cant expect a clone (theyd get sued anyway). The answer to that one is simple, use whatever platform the software is on but let the company know you wanted a version on Linux. If they dont know people want it they wont make it.
You should start a new topic about this, to gain more attention.
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It is not only about file managers but all software. For example he uses BSPlayer Free for windows, once you play a movie it automatically downloads subtitles in predefined languages from opensubtitles or other sites, lets you have 2 subtitles and and has character encoding that works without issues. That is one click solution. I don't know any player on linux that can get me subtitles in less than 5 minutes. That alone is worth time restarting into windows. VLC is great but there are always some special character that end up being weird and ruins movie immersion.
If you make professional software for one narrow target group you do not want to double your expenses for expanding into another platform, especially if you know that low percentage of users have it. For architecture even if ArchiCAD and AutoCAD existed in linux, there is always a third program every architect use at the same time that just does not exist in linux.
From experience from working in Europe and US I can say that US has more task based jobs while european companies want jacks-of-all-trades. It is easier to switch someone who uses one program than someone who works at 10 programs at the same time. US also has bigger percentage of mac users than Europe so it easier to switch to linux.
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For me its about application support. I would switch to Linux like 8-10 years ago if they had proper support for Adobe, Axure, as well as all of my favourite and upcoming games. It's as simple as if I switched, it would limit my work capabilities and even my spare time capabilities. As soon as that's out of the way I'm back, though. I really miss the other aspects of xubuntu/ubuntu gnome
Great Post !
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Here I am, I'm the progress. I used windows almost entirely until about a year ago. Then I started playing with linux, I put it on an old laptop, etc. Now I am almost entirely using linux, with just windows for a couple games.
Thanks to microsoft's horrid behavior with win10, I'll very soon remove windows from my hardware completely.
And of coruse, there are a lot of people like me. It'll happen, eventually.
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Right, good prompt.
I'm using Xubuntu on a netbook/laptop for resource reasons and a tower because I liked xubuntu so much. I like Linux and will probably switch to it rather than win 10. Here is my 2 cents on why people don't use linux:
About 70-80% of the things I want form linux simply work. No problem there. Newest automatic updates, no viruses, awesome.
Main point:
The stuff that does not work out of the box, is a complete bitch to fix.
And I don't mean "oh you have to navigate some GUI" like in windows, where you have to put in proper network info into the right fields to turn something on or configure it correctly.
I mean stuff like: I have a wireless headset that works with a USB transmitter. The device works. Out of the box, no questions asked. You just plug it in. Cool.
What doesn't work is the default audio device selection of the sound manager. There is no help, no f1, no "about" beyond we're XYZ and we made this, no manual.
The "solution" that I found that works in some cases involved turning on hidden files in my filebrowser and then copy pasting the id string from one of the config files to the other, after setting 2 default options, effectively making the two identical.
There is nothing I can do to beyond doing this thing on my machine to help fix this problem either. There is no bug report button, there might be a forum or a mailinglist somewhere but what are the chances that I can find it and that it's being read.
Alternatively, I'm sure there are uncounted problems that are best done with the command line. I'm comfortable with that. Is the vast majority of Users? No, absolutely not. That just looks scary. It's the stuff that shows when they boot their windows machines where the rule was "Don't even think about touching anything". So they don't.
Also, I don't even want to mention the amount of times I got a popup saying
"There was a problem with SERVICE, do you want to report it"
"Yes/No"
With absolutely no information on what the problem actually is or how to fix it or how to avoid it the next time.
Can I find that information on the internet? Yes probably. Can I be arsed to? Sometimes.
Anyway that's my perspective.
Good points, though I would have to say you should try other managers. Pavucontrol keeps a history and applies the last config it used on boot.
I find it interesting how many posts are saying that Android is a Linux distro as if it is interchangeable with a desktop distro of Linux. Most Linux desktop distro's are based on the GNU operating system (most or less). A huge amount of what most distros have around the kernel was written especially for Android to make it work specifically for mobile phones. This is why very few applications that are common on most GNU/Linux distro's hardly ever appear on Android and why Android apps don't really run on any other GNU/Linux distro. For the purposes of the Android argument Android might as well run on any other kernel.
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