A good friend said to me last night: In 2009, there will be a major OS war. It will be between Windows 7 and Mac OSX "Snow Leopard". Linux will not feature.
This struck a chord. I've been using Linux - Ubuntu in particular - for years now. It had a lot of rough edges, initially. Being comfortable with configuration files, command lines and other geek magic, this wasn't a deal-breaker for me. I had very good reasons to ditch Microsoft software (besides cost), and even with its shortcomings Ubuntu offered many advantages.
However, I could never in good conscience recommend it to a non-geek, everyday user, who was pretty much happy with Windows, in the sense that they knew which tap needed an extra turn to stop it from leaking, and they didn't know what they were missing.
Ubuntu, probably more so than most Linux versions, was always intended to go further, however. The man behind it, South Africa's own Mark Shuttleworth, made no secret that he wanted Ubuntu to be a real alternative to Windows on the desktop, for the general user. Bug number one on the Ubuntu bug tracking system, confirmed as critical, is "Microsoft has a majority market share".
Better with age
As version followed version, in an upgrade cycle that was admirable for its six-month regularity, many of the serious problems were solved. By "Gutsy Gibbon" and "Hardy Heron", the versions released in October 2007 and April 2008 respectively, Ubuntu was getting somewhere. On most machines, in most circumstances, for most average users, it was easy to install and use, and only bad-luck cases needed command-line intervention.
My friend's comment struck a chord, however, for two reasons.
The man behind it [Ubuntu], South Africa's own Mark Shuttleworth, made no secret that he wanted Ubuntu to be a real alternative to Windows on the desktop, for the general user.
Ivo Vegter, ITWeb contributor
One is that Ubuntu looks old. It looks like Windows XP. It is still difficult, on many machines, to get the kind of user interface that in Mac OSX just happens. Often, with Ubuntu, you'd have to find special graphics drivers, not panic when you get a blank screen on boot-up, search the interwebs for solutions, hack your graphics configuration file in obscure and dangerous ways, work through lengthy options screens, and tear your hear out. Usually, there were ways to overcome the problems, but not if you're Joe Average. It doesn't just happen.
Much of Ubuntu's look and feel isn't Ubuntu's fault at all. Because of the open source nature of Linux, most of what the user ends up seeing isn't under the control of the Ubuntu team. OpenOffice, for example, works fine, but it looks clunky and quaint. The GIMP is great, if you last used PhotoShop at the turn of the century. Likewise, third-party drivers (for graphics or wireless networking cards, for example) are outside Ubuntu's control, even when they've been open-sourced. There's nothing much Ubuntu (or any other Linux outfit) can do about such things. But Joe Average doesn't see it that way.
The second reason I couldn't argue is that both my computers, out of the blue, suffered problems earlier this week. One inexplicably booted into 640x480 resolution, which is entirely useless. I needed to hit Alt-F1 to get to the menu system. Does Joe Average know what to do when he can't see a menu to click on? Once there, I was told that the RandR extension wasn't present, so it couldn't change resolution at run-time. Does Joe Average know, or care, what RandR is? Thing is, it worked the day before, and it worked again once I rebooted. I couldn't reproduce the problem and can only hope it won't recur. Does Joe Average need this aggravation?
Clueless
In the mean time, I had to use my other machine, which aborted booting with a Grub Error 15. Does Joe Average have a clue, at this point? Luckily, I did. I had installed Ubuntu on an old version of the Asus EeePC subnotebook, which meant I had to split the operating system between the tiny built-in flash drive and a supplementary memory card. Getting that to work required tinkering with Grub - the bootloader - to avoid both Error 15 and 17. (You know which errors I mean, surely!) The reason for the recurrence of the error was that I had left a bootable USB stick plugged in. Thoughtless of me.
But let's face it, the fact that this broke my system is just not good enough. And no matter what version I use, no matter what machine it's on, there's always something. Sure, it can always be fixed. Sure, there's always an explanation, or it's a rare exception, or it's my own fault, but there's always something, nonetheless.
I'm hardly likely to switch to another Linux, or worse, shell out thousands for Mac OSX 'Snow Leopard' or Windows 7, both due later this year. There are still a great many reasons I prefer Ubuntu over competitors (beyond the attractive price).
But in the end, I had to concede the point: in the looming OS war of 2009, my favourite OS will not be a contender. By now, Ubuntu was supposed to be good enough to recommend to Average Joe.
It isn't.
Share