The Adventures of AlisterComputeron

In Part 1 of this post gave some suggestions on what the Linux community could do to help make their OS more mainstream. Linux has a large, loyal following, and with good reason: the OS is solid, secure, and free, among other things.  But the Linux crowd is made up of mainly users who are computer savvy.  I hear talk all the time that Linux needs to weaken Microsoft’s dominance of the OS market.  It’s not going to happen with Linux in its current form.  It’s come a long way, but there’s still a lot more to do.

So here are a few more things that, from my experience, need to be improved to make Linux more appealing for average users.

Less Features, More Usability
I like that some of the Linux distos come packed with apps, and fancy features for customizing the desktop and enhancing the user experience.  But more effort needs to be put into making the OS easier to use rather than packing it with more features.  Adding more features to the OS is fine fordistros that could be aimed at power users.  But simplicity needs to be built in to the OS to attract average users, the ones who don’t have the expertise or time to go looking for the right drivers, for instance, and then figure out how to install them. 

It’s a – perhaps – sad fact that average users don’t engage more computer self-help.  There have been more than a few times when I’ve been called to a user’s desk to assist with a Word, Excel, browser, this, or that problem.  I don’t know everything there is to know about these apps and what the user wants to do with them.  So with the user watching me, I open the help menu, search for what the user wants help with, and then explain what I just read to user.  The user could have resolved his own problem by consulting the help menu himself.  I’m a little to blame, too, for codling the user, but I don’t think it’s good customer service to say to the user, “look it up in the help menu.”

So it’s a stretch to think that users will search the user forums for answers.  Out of the box, Linux needs to be ready to go, loaded with the coolest apps, the right drivers, and an intuitive interface.

Make it less Geeky
I’m not trying to hurt anybody’s feelings here, but think about it for a moment.  Windows is the OS for the vast majority of users.  Mac OS X is the OS for the hip, creative types.  Linux is the OS for the computers geeks.  If Linux is to become mainstream, the Linux community needs to get rid of terms like dependencies, packages, and file systems. Terms like that have no meaning to a mainstream user, whether it’s a home computer or a company computer.  In other words, dumb-down these terms.

Even Windows can be geeky, though.  I often have to hand-hold users through something simple like connecting to shared folders: “Click Start, click Run, type back slash – no, the slash above the Enter key” – you get the idea.

I suggest hiding the all the start-up and shut-up messages that appear on the screen, too.  These might be cool for the techies, but they’ll surely confuse normal users.

Keep the terminal program handy, but don’t ever require users to have to use the command line.  Streamline software downloads and installations, driver configuration, and updates to a few clicks on the GUI.  Entering commands in a terminal windows is the ultimate in computer-geekness, reminiscent of Mathew Broderick in War Games.  That little nerd saved the world from nuclear holocaust with his command line skills.  Granted, he nearly caused nuclear holocaust with his hacking skills.  The point is, users don’t want to be Mathew Broderick; they’d rather be those two dudes who made Kelly LeBrock with their computer.  (Can you guess how old I am?)

Make Linux more like the Mac
I think the biggest move that would make Linux successful in the mainstream is tight integration of Linux with specific sets of hardware.  Hardware makers should customize the Linux distro to their hardware and lock it down.  But doesn’t that sound a little Apple-like, and very non open source?  One reason that Mac OS works so well, is because it’s tightly integrated with the hardware.  One reason Windows has problems is that it tries to support every piece of hardware.

But tight integration between hardware and Linux could work and still foster the spirit of the open community.  A distro like the popular Ubuntu, has been customized by Dell to run on Dell computers, but the software can still be downloaded in its original release from the Ubuntu web site.  Dell has been selling select PCs with Ubuntu pre-installed but other manufacturers – HP, Acer, etc. – need to take this approach, too.  And I’m not talking about putting Linux on stripped-down PCs so they can be sold at Wal-Mart at the sub-$300 or sub-$200 price point.  I’m talking about reputable manufacturers selling well-equipped Linux machines in outlets like Best Buy and Circuit City.  If the Linux community is serious about selling Linux computers, get them on the shelves of the big box electronics stores, and put brand on the case that people have heard of.

Alternatively, a major Linux shop, like Red Hat, could sell computers with its distro installed and specially configured for the hardware it’s selling.  IBM announced at LinuxWorld that it wants to develop a Linux distro integrated with Lotus Notes and Lotus Symphony to take on Microsoft in the battle for corporate desktops.  I believe IBM needs to sell hardware with its Linux loaded to have a chance at achieving its goal.  They can’t expect to drop a Linux CD on IT departments and expect the IT dudes to figure out how to make the software work with the hardware.

There is progress in this area, though.  In some cases, Linux has been highly customized to support a specific device.  Amazon’s Kindle is one such product.  Andnetbooks are a hardware platform that is popular for Linux.  According to Ars Techica, Intel’s Moblin project is a Linux-based software platform that can be used in several devices based on Intel’s Atom processor.  The Atom and Moblin “provide a unified hardware and software platform that can be adopted almost anywhere.”

What the Linux Community has gotten Right so Far
I’m going to finish this post by briefly outlining what I think Linux has done well right so far.

It’s Lean
I like that I can install Ubuntu on a 5GB partition and still have a little room left.  I have an old PC that I got from work that I want to turn into an “Internet PC.”  At one point during my experimentation, I had Unbuntu andXubuntu installed on a 10GB hard drive in two 5GB partitions.

It uses RAM efficiently
There are no unnecessary processes running in the background of the Linux OS.  I don’t have anti-virus software and stupid adware/spyware scanners taking up valuable resources.  My installation for my Internet PC experiment runs a Pentium III PC with just 256MB RAM.  Granted, it doesn’t run well, but good enough for web browsing and web apps.

Packed with Apps with Plenty More Available
The Linux community has developed some awesome programs that are completely free.  Many of these programs are as good, if not better than, their commercial equivalents.

Cost
I’ve heard some Linux nay-sayers say that you get what you pay for.  Using Ubuntun as my example flavor again, users get, for free, a rock-solid, stable, secure OS that is constantly updated by a dedicated community of developers who love computers.  That sounds like a great value to me.

Conclusion
I want to see Linux succeed, because I like choice.  I don’t like Microsoft’s dominance of the OS market.  Through their complacency, technology has not advanced as it should have.  They rested on the success of Windows 95, and didn’t innovate their OS; Windows Vista is layered on top of some of that old Windows 95 technology.  Additionally, Microsoft’s disregard for security has made the being on the Internet more dangerous than it should be, and corporations are forced to spend money on securing their networks becauseMicrsoft’s OS’s have more holes than a cheap hooker’s fishnet stockings.  Windows is like a middle-aged man who hasn’t taken care of himself: he’s overweight; he’s slow; he’s no longer hip; he’s no longer good looking; his attempts at self-improvement are half-hearted at best, because he just doesn’t care.

Come on Linux legions! I implore you to show the masses what your superior OS can do.  Show them that you can make a desktop OS that’s more stable, more secure, and more user-friendly than Windows could ever dream to be.  Make a free OS that appeals to average, ordinary users.

The news from LinuxWorld got me psyched to check out Linux again to see what has changed in the year or so since I last experimented with the alternative OS. On a few occasions over the years, I’ve tried some various flavors of Linux. The things that have frustrated me the most about Linux are installing applications, hardware compatibility, and general usability of the OS. So what did I find this time around? Well, not much has changed. Linux is still the geeky OS that it’s always been. It’s an OS that has huge potential, but because of the openness of it, there is no single company or organization with a clear road map to get Linux into the mainstream. Canonical, the commercial sponsor of the Ubuntu distribution, has made some great strides with usability, but it’s still not ready for mainstream usage.

IBM has plans to develop a Linux version to be a viable alternative to Microsoft. Red Hat has done a good job of getting into some corporate data centers. And there have been some attempts to build inexpensive PCs for consumers to be sold at discount outlets like Wal-Mart.

These are all fine ambitions and accomplishments, but more needs to be done. So in a two-part series, here’s my two cents on what the Linux community needs to do to take their operating system from the systems of hard-core computer nerds to the desktops and notebooks of corporate and home users (without having to sell $199 PCs at Wal-Mart).

Installing Applications: An Exercise in Frustration
Installing Linux, itself, is fairly straight-forward, though I’m not sure the average user would understand the creating of partitions and setting up the file system stuff. But the installer makes taking the defaults easy. And, really, how many mainstream users have installed Windows? So that’s really a non-issue.

But installing apps that aren’t part of the repository can drive all the but truly nerdy completely insane. I was using the previous version of Xubuntu, a scaled-down version of Ubuntu for use on older PCs. It had version 2 of Firefox, and I wanted to upgrade it to Firefox 3. The new version wasn’t available in the repository, so I attempted to download it from Firefox’s download site. The download was successful, but that’s as far as I got. It’s been my experience that there’s no “setup.exe ” file contained with Linux apps, and forget about the ultra-easy installation of some apps on Mac that simply require the user to drag and drop an icon to the Applications folder.

Because I’m a huge fan of Firefox 3, I installed the latest version of Xubuntu, which has Firefox 3. Then I decided that I wanted Google Desktop and Google Gadgets for my desktop. I was able to find a blog post explaining how to install Google Gadgets. I got the desktop gadgets installed, but it required me to use the command line. That’s not a problem for experienced users, but image what that would be like for a typical user.

There are some great apps available for Linux, but not all of them are available through the software repository. Linux developers need to standardize the file system among the distros, and then standardize a way to install apps in a way that users are accustomed to in Windows or Mac OS X.

I’ll present some more suggestions in Part 2 of this post, including an idea to be more like the Mac.