Apple, Microsoft, or Linux?

[The_pantless_hero]

The problem if definitely "perception" though... It's the false "perception" that only nerds are capable of using Linux... And that's it... FALSE perception.

And they do a horrible, HORRIBLE job of dispelling that. They either need to capitalize on that perception and use it as a selling point (like Apple does for trendy douchebags) or COMPLETELY get rid of it and market to the middle.

[Hairless Kitten II]

Now, you know why it is sometimes difficult to get things done on a Linux machine and why Linux is having only a market share of 1% since 18 years.

There are two questions there:
1. It is not difficult to "get things done" on Linux. While it lacks the games of Windows, it is on par in terms of productivity. Your typical office environment could function just as well running Linux as Windows, and have far less overhead eating up profits from initial cost and maintenance/repair cost.
2. Linux has a market share of 1% because it's not Windows... It's not a Microsoft branded product. Has absolutely NOTHING to do with reliability or usability... That's where you're wrong... It has to do with familiarity of the name "Microsoft Windows". You have tons of people sticking with Office 2003, why? Because it's familiar.... You have people buying the new Office 2007 (and then bitching endlessly about it because they changed it) because it's from Microsoft...

In the perception of a nerd, a Linux system is user-friendly, in the perception of the other species it's a mess.

Most people are not nerds.

My 90 year old Grandmother is running Linux on her computer. And she still thinks light-switches are magic...

The problem if definitely "perception" though... It's the false "perception" that only nerds are capable of using Linux... And that's it... FALSE perception.

1. Sure, a lot of hardware simply doesn't work with Linux. And it's not only exotic stuff. I'll be silent about video drivers, video codecs, wireless stuff and just bugs... And if something goes wrong with Linux then it's pretty well wrong.

2. Well why aren't we still using Lotus 123, dBase or WordPerfect? They were #1 once, they were the giants in their disciplines. They were not small little companies with no resources, no money or no people.

Oh yeah, the usual grandmother is again on the party. It seems that ALL Linux users have a 90 year old grandmother. Well, I don't believe you. You would for less if you heard this crap already a million times.

Perception doesn't have to be false. I'm rather good in computers. I studied computer science and I'm having 20 years of professional experience. And I do find Linux not user-friendly. That doesn't mean it hasn't user-friendly parts and that doesn't mean that Windows or Mac are perfect either.

[The_pantless_hero]

I am pretty sure Corel or some one bought Word Perfect and it keeps coming with computers...

[NotnotgnimmiJymmiJ]

I can get to either the network config, or the firewall config (from the desktop) in three clicks, and I don't have to open 1-2 different windows to get there in-between (cough-Vista-cough)...

You can get to the firewall settings through clicks in windows ?
I usually just typed firewall (or firewall.cpl) in the run window... consoles are so much more efficient and require less searching around the whole system for a menu option for a casual user as myself...

EDIT: and yes, I am serious. I really do NOT wish to plough through menus to find an option.

That's two to three clicks PLUS having to know the command to launch the firewall settings.

Firewall opens up the firewall settings? holy shit.

[The_pantless_hero]

I can get to either the network config, or the firewall config (from the desktop) in three clicks, and I don't have to open 1-2 different windows to get there in-between (cough-Vista-cough)...

You can get to the firewall settings through clicks in windows ?
I usually just typed firewall (or firewall.cpl) in the run window... consoles are so much more efficient and require less searching around the whole system for a menu option for a casual user as myself...

EDIT: and yes, I am serious. I really do NOT wish to plough through menus to find an option.

That's two to three clicks PLUS having to know the command to launch the firewall settings.

Firewall opens up the firewall settings? holy shit.

"Hey look at me, I'm being a dick!"

if it doesn't, you have managed to show that you can use the console to access a GUI that anyone else can access in the same number of clicks without having to know console commands. Good job, you win 1i internet!

[Hairless Kitten II]

I am pretty sure Corel or some one bought Word Perfect and it keeps coming with computers...

Sure what is the market share?

It was once king of the hill. And now...

That does mean that people are prepared to do a software move, if the contender is better and is giving what the people want.

Something Linux didn't achieve in 18 years. Linux isn't having even a serious market share (<1%) !

If THAT operating system was indeed better than Windows, then more people would have it on their desktop. It didn't happen, sorry.

So something went wrong...

Well Linux girls: hire a team of fucking good usability engineers and your market share will double and even triple. Guaranteed.

But who will pay them? No one, it's open source, remember. Catch-22.

[The_pantless_hero]

I am pretty sure Corel or some one bought Word Perfect and it keeps coming with computers...

Sure what is the market share?

MY GOD WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE WRITING PARAGRAPHS ONE LINE AT A TIME IN DOUBLE SPACE.

It's market share of existence? Rather high I would guess. Of use? Very low because it isn't intercompatible with Word.
Yes, that is double spaced. I am also not writing TEN FUCKING LINES.

[The Tofu Islands]

But who will pay them? No one, it's open source, remember. Catch-22.

I think that Mozilla's employees might disagree.

[Hairless Kitten II]

But who will pay them? No one, it's open source, remember. Catch-22.

I think that Mozilla's employees might disagree.

Sure Aza Raskin will change the look and feel of the complete Linux OS for free, while he his working on a browser...

Dream on.

[Rejistania]

At Amazon they did work with several usability engineering approaches. Amazon is having more customers as Linux is having users.

The usability in amazon is so crappy that even if I would get over their horrible approach to privacy, I wouldn't register there or buy anything from them.

Privacy is rather a functional issue than a usability one.

You would be amazed what they do to earn more money. I'll give you one simple example:

They often try out new screens but do not show them to the entire population of users. That way they can benchmark which approach is resulting in the most $.

And their one-click buying system is a direct result of usability engineering.

I said that this is the main issue, which is worse than their usability. but the usability is horrible as well. And randomly testing new screens is one of the examples of bad usability, not of good one.

Well Linux girls: hire a team of fucking good usability engineers and your market share will double and even triple. Guaranteed.

No, it will reduce the amount of market share because the OS would no longer work as the developers expect it. Usability experts are people who propagate one form of superstition and assume that the user is a moron. I am not a moron and would prefer twm over a ''usable'' GNOME.

[The Tofu Islands]

Sure Aza Raskin will change the look and feel of the complete Linux OS for free, while he his working on a browser...

Dream on.

Wait, what?

I was just saying that open source ≠ no money involved. There are various companies that hire people to write code that is open-sourced. Mozilla would be one example. Canonical would be another.

[Hairless Kitten II]

I said that this is the main issue, which is worse than their usability. but the usability is horrible as well. And randomly testing new screens is one of the examples of bad usability, not of good one.

You have no clue about what you are talking. First it's not randomly. They look at the weak points and try to improve them.

A/B testing is very valuable and rather fair.
If screen A is generating $1000 and screen B is generating $2000 then screen B is better.
A/B testing is also used to test performance but it's also nice for testing qualitative parameters.

[Hairless Kitten II]

Sure Aza Raskin will change the look and feel of the complete Linux OS for free, while he his working on a browser...

Dream on.

Wait, what?

I was just saying that open source ≠ no money involved. There are various companies that hire people to write code that is open-sourced. Mozilla would be one example. Canonical would be another.

Do you know what a usability engineer is costing? Well, it's about $150 to $200 for each hour and some even ask much more. It takes 6 to 8 years of study after your high school. Let us assume that you need 3 to 5 years to gain experience and thus be labelled as a fairly good usability engineer.

That will say you are around your thirties. You are starting to settle down or your already did, you have a wife or a husband, you have a loan to repay your house, maybe a few kids and a fucking dog. You don't have time to offer your life to the free community of Linux.

A programmer is a different animal. Programming is easy. In 1 or 2 years you can be a good programmer, if you want to. So teenagers can spend a lot of time on programming for the kick, the fame, the glory or whatever and this for free in the Linux world.

[Rejistania]

I said that this is the main issue, which is worse than their usability. but the usability is horrible as well. And randomly testing new screens is one of the examples of bad usability, not of good one.

You have no clue about what you are talking. First it's not randomly. They look at the weak points and try to improve them.

A/B testing is very valuable and rather fair.
If screen A is generating $1000 and screen B is generating $2000 then screen B is better.
A/B testing is also used to test performance but it's also nice for testing qualitative parameters.

Itis randomly since I assume the users who get the new screens are randomly selected. Which is what I refered to.

I know quite a bit about GUI design and I know that randomly changing screens violates the criteria of working acording to expectations.

[Heronfield]

everyone seems very angry about Linux in a Mac or Microsoft thread?

[Tekania]

The problem if definitely "perception" though... It's the false "perception" that only nerds are capable of using Linux... And that's it... FALSE perception.

And they do a horrible, HORRIBLE job of dispelling that. They either need to capitalize on that perception and use it as a selling point (like Apple does for trendy douchebags) or COMPLETELY get rid of it and market to the middle.

But, there's no real marketing. And what marketing there is is aimed primarily at businesses, because that is where the "commercial" linux vendors, and their buddies, get their money from.

Most of linux is found in user-community, Linux's market share is almost purely word of mouth... So that fact that it holds even a small amount against companies with funnel millions into ad campaigns itself says alot LOL.

Microsoft builds its ad campaign to aim at "ease of use"
Apple builds its ad campaign to aim at PC users being dorks, Apple users being cool.
Linux virtually has no ad campaign... IBM did do some advertising, but it was aimed at corporate interests, and Linux's scalability for use in Corporate/Industry.

[The Alma Mater]

That's two to three clicks PLUS having to know the command to launch the firewall settings.

True - but at least typing firewall works in XP, Vista and windows 7 - while the menu structure to get to that screen has changed in every version. The "console skills" - although with windows 7 it is more of a clever launchpad for people who like typing (kudos to ms for understanding people like me. Finally) - remain useful. The memorised menuclicks do not.

That I personally detest the network center of course does not help either, but that is a sideissue.

[The_pantless_hero]

Most of linux is found in user-community, Linux's market share is almost purely word of mouth... So that fact that it holds even a small amount against companies with funnel millions into ad campaigns itself says alot LOL.

No, it doesn't. Considering Linux consists of a very large number of distros even I can name at least half a dozen of if I try and that how many other OSs are there that are up to date?

[Tekania]

1. Sure, a lot of hardware simply doesn't work with Linux. And it's not only exotic stuff. I'll be silent about video drivers, video codecs, wireless stuff and just bugs... And if something goes wrong with Linux then it's pretty well wrong.

Most hardware works. Including most video hardware. There's not that many players in the Video Hardware world anymore... Anything from AMD/ATI, nVidia or Intel most certainly works.

Video Codecs, only have one word for you Gstreamer...

Wireless? Don't have any wireless issues on my laptop... Even using an Atheros based card.

You're proving to me you have no present-day experience with Linux... You're out-dated.

2. Well why aren't we still using Lotus 123, dBase or WordPerfect? They were #1 once, they were the giants in their disciplines. They were not small little companies with no resources, no money or no people.

People are still using WordPerfect(No matter how much it sucks). Still being installed on NEW machines from the factory. I just uninstalled it from a new machine that was purchased for a client last week.

Oh yeah, the usual grandmother is again on the party. It seems that ALL Linux users have a 90 year old grandmother. Well, I don't believe you. You would for less if you heard this crap already a million times.

Must be because my 90 year old grandmother is more tech-savy than you. People who do not have a pre-conceived notion of doing things only "The MS Windows Way" do not have the same issues with Linux when starting fresh... It's not hard for someone to pick up... Hell people have serious issues with MS Word 2k7 who have been using Word 2k3, xp, 2k, 97..etc for years... It changed, and now they have to go about doing the same stuff they were doing before in a different way... And people hate change...

Perception doesn't have to be false. I'm rather good in computers. I studied computer science and I'm having 20 years of professional experience. And I do find Linux not user-friendly. That doesn't mean it hasn't user-friendly parts and that doesn't mean that Windows or Mac are perfect either.

Well, considering you're bringing up linux arguments which are out-dated, I wonder if your experience itself isn't 20 years worth, but 20 years old...

[Tekania]

But who will pay them? No one, it's open source, remember. Catch-22.

I think that Mozilla's employees might disagree.

Sure Aza Raskin will change the look and feel of the complete Linux OS for free, while he his working on a browser...

Dream on.

There is no "Look and feel" of Linux.... Linux is the Operating System... Operating Systems do not have "look and feel". There are various look-and-feels FOR Linux (and other unixes), called Desktop Environments... Usually it's Gnome or KDE, though there are others. And they are constantly evolving, hell KDE4 was a complete from-the-ground-up built, by community developers no-less.

[Tekania]

No, it doesn't. Considering Linux consists of a very large number of distros even I can name at least half a dozen of if I try and that how many other OSs are there that are up to date?

How many OS's are there that are up to date? Really, only four.... Present day Bell-Labs descendents of Unix System V, Present-day descendents of BSD Unix (Which includes Mac OSX), Present-day Linux, and Present-day descendents of VMS. Besides those, there are no other mainline Operating Systems...

[Mikertaz Kein]

I had no idea the number of people who support Linux.

I shall change the thread name to include this....

[Tekania]

:blink:

I had no idea the number of people who support Linux.

I shall change the thread name to include this....

No surprise. It's more prevalent than what is stated in "Market Share" studies... Since they are based off of OS purchases.... If someone buys a Dell machine with Windows pre-installed, it's counted as a "Windows User" even if they guy wipes it as soon as he opens the box, and installs a *nix on it... Statistics can make anything look good, by manipulating the defining criteria to get the result you want...

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

*snip*

MY GOD WHAT IS WITH PEOPLE WRITING PARAGRAPHS ONE LINE AT A TIME IN DOUBLE SPACE.

It's market share of existence? Rather high I would guess. Of use? Very low because it isn't intercompatible with Word.
Yes, that is double spaced. I am also not writing TEN FUCKING LINES.

Now you listen to me.

I will space my paragraphs however I please. If all you can find to object to in a properly spelled and comprehensibly grammatical post is the spacing of the paragraphs, then your mood or temprament is not suited to debating anything.

Double spacing between paragraphs is the standard for manuscripts, as is starting a paragraph without tab or spaces.

Because almost no-one here uses a tab at start of paragraph, and because the default font here is not justified (ie, stretched out so the last word of a line goes to the right margin) it is the right standard to use, because without it a paragraph ending with a full-stop at the right margin would not appear as a paragraph at all. The next paragraph, starting on the next line, would appear to be the continuation of the same paragraph (except for the rare user who has non-printing characters like the paragraph symbol ¶ displaying.)

Not only is it astoundingly petty of you to object to people putting a line between paragraphs, it is also WRONG.

If readability matters less to you than space taken up on your screen ... I suggest you find your Page Down button. Those of us who find a post (and particularly a long post) easier to read with the paragraphs clearly separated will continue to do that in our own posts.

Shouting at us isn't going to make us change that habit. You can forget that.

[Conserative Morality]

Oh yeah, the usual grandmother is again on the party. It seems that ALL Linux users have a 90 year old grandmother. Well, I don't believe you. You would for less if you heard this crap already a million times.

As long as we're speaking of Grandparents, my Grandmother uses Vista and loves it.