January 23, 2009

Why linux can never replace windows

I have rather jumped into murky water talking stuff about Linux. I am a Luser myself and I still stand by everything I said about Linux. Allow me to present my views on why Linux would never replace windows as a desktop favorite.

My theory is When things are going fine, people would rather not have a choice. This is kind of a fairly obvious observation. Imagine you are really thirsty and you go to a juice shop to have some orange juice and the person taking the order goes like this, "Do you like your orange juice organic or regular, with or without calcium, or with minimal or maximal pulp, Do you want it with regular sugar or low calorie sugar?..." and the list is endless... I have been through circumstances where I just felt like yelling "ANYTHING... As long as it looks orange in color and is served in a glass(which need not necessarily be transparent may I add!).

This is the same thing that happens with Linux. The same flexibility that made it such a big hit on the server side is putting off novice users. Why else do you think IE still happens to have 60% of the share? I agree a lot of people don't know, but they don't want to, because IE works and as long as it gets work done, people don't care..

This is precisely the point I tried to make in my previous entry. Just look at the installation process. For every layer, I have to choose out of 6 or 8 alternatives that look and sound similar and all of them make absolutely no sense to me. I cannot be sure if something that works for someone else works for me. Go to any Ubuntu forum, that is what you find. It puts off people. Then there are dependencies, fancy libraries, and worst of all desktop widgets. Unless all the distributions agree upon some basic guidelines to make the installation and running the basic system easy, Windows is going to rule.

PS: No more Luser posts from me.

6 comments:

  1. You're right buddy. Of course Linux can be amusing to fondle, it gives you all the independence but also the responsibility of doing all by yourself. Linux is like a restaurant where u are free to use the kitchen and prepare your own meal. So if you want to be the chef use Linux, but to eat Windows is the best place.
    Well no one bothers about MAC. :D

    ReplyDelete
  2. There is nothing inherently wrong or right in an OS. Mostly our work relates to applications that run on them. If developers start giving linux importance and starting porting their products to linux, I think the situation will change. And the reason why they are not doing is because linux userbase is so low. Why take lot of overhead for minuscule increase in sales.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I totally agree with G2. I've spent about half a sem trying to get LINUX working on my comp but failed miserably. I tried various flavors (gentoo, ubuntu,opensuse, slackware, and the list goes on).
    But I still don't give up. Anyone ready to help me with it?

    NOTE: LINUX IS NOT USER FRIENDLY! (just to continue the discussion :p )

    ReplyDelete
  4. yes me too fed up with linux... windows was always far better... i never felt a need of anything else..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Come on Lusers... defend linux.

    ReplyDelete

don't be lazy