linux not ready for the desktop
Asa Dotzler, of firefox fame, has written an article on why linux is not ready for the desktop. In the article, he touches on four points that, in his opinion, are keeping Linux from being adopted by the “Regular People”.
So what’s wrong with Linux that makes it not ready for the desktop. I’ve tried KDE and Gnome desktops but my latest is FC4 so my criticism is focused on that (and Gnome) but I think KDE distros suffer just as bad if not worse. The issues fall into four basic categories, migration, stability, simplicity, and comfort. These issues each cover both technical capability shortcomings as well as usability failings.
I find myself agreeing with him on every single one of his points. In addition, it is nice that he is able to back each point up using his experiences of working on Firefox. At each point he shows why Firefox has been accepted by 65 million downloads where other products have failed (i.e., Mozilla).
Regular People may be willing to take a look at Linux, but as long as all of their data and settings still lives in Windows, they’re not going to stay very long — no matter how appealing it might be. We learned this lesson in the Mozilla world. It wasn’t until we implemented a very capable migration system in Firefox, which carried over the user’s IE favorites, cookies, history, passwords, etc. that Regular People started moving over in serious numbers
People do not adjust to things that are new for them. Before my Dad bought MS Office for himself, I gave him a copy of OpenOffice.org 1.0 to try out. He rejected it and spent the $700 CAD it took to buy Office. Why? Because after using Word for 10+ years, he could not adjust to something different. There were too many things that he had to relearn to use OOo. This is the same with Linux.