Linux

I recently read someone’s blog entry on the subject of Linux. Her husband, whom she characterized as a geek, had installed it on their machine, replacing Windows in the process and, being unfamiliar with it, she was frustrated. The first thing that struck me, of course, was I wondered how much of a geek hubby can be if he didn’t know that it is ridiculously easy to install Linux on a separate partition and have a Windows/Linux dual boot system offering any user the ability to choose their OS. “Is this guy actually a bit of a dolt, or is he just being a touch cruel or domineering?” lept into my mind. No matter. The interesting thing about the posting was not the actual post, which was essentially just (understandable) whining, but rather the comments it attracted.

I find it amusing how people proselytyze or defend their chosen OS as if it were something that actually mattered. This is not so much true of course with Windows, which almost nobody goes out of their way to praise. But the MAC and Linux crowds! Wow. It is like a religion for them. They are cult-like in their devotion, with Steve Jobs and Lunus Torvald being their respective gurus. So, naturally, the comments this person’s post attracted were from Linux apologists, all praising it benefits and superiority, assuring the poster she’d be happier in the long term, and stressing that there’s nothing you can do on Windows and nothing available for Windows that is not do-able and available for Linux. One went so far as to point out that by using Linux the poster would come to understand computers better over time. Duh! Geeks just don’t get it. The average person does not want to understand computers any more than the average driver wants to understand exactly how their complex engine actually works. They want to DRIVE their cars and they want to USE their computers.

Though I’d rate myself as only a lowly 2 or 3 perhaps on a 1-10 scale of computer knowledge, I do understand geeks’ love of Linux. It has several points in its favor IF you care about such things. Key among them are: User control is several times greater than with Windows and infinitely greater than with MAC, and it is apparently more secure than Windows, as is MAC. This latter point I find a bit interesting. I don’t know enough to know the answer so I always wonder if this superior security is a function of an inherenly better designed system or simply because the hackers of the world can’t be bothered going after OS’s that have a combined 6% market share.

As good as Linux may be, the simple truth is that nobody uses it despite the fact that it is available in a variety of flavors and is entirely cost-free, if you wish. At least nobody uses it as their desktop OS. It is the dominant system for servers, to be sure, but after years of improvements and a steady move make the GUI more Windows-like, it still hovers around that 3% mark in worldwide users. The reason is simple: It isn’t Windows! People are used to Windows. Period. You do not get people to stop using a particular train for transportation by offering a more secure or differently decorated train. You get them to change by offering them an airplane. Linux is not that airplane. It is perhaps a safer train, but one in which the passenger has to now and then actually stoke the fire.

The one commenter going on about the availability of software was wrong. Certainly the equivalents of Office, Winamp and hundreds of other popular apps exist - in most cases coming as part of the Linux “distribution” - but there are indeed many applications that simply cannot be found for Linux. And for those apps you do seek out and find, installation can range from relatively simple to sheer hell. Whatever the case, it is never as simple as it is with Windows where the height of complex installation is sometimes having to unzip a package before installing it. Linux takes work - usually not much work, but work nonetheless. Until a person can use Linux without having to learn terminology like “apt-get” and have to actually type commmands in a console, (How often does the average Windows user ever use the Command Line? Duh!) Linux will remain a toy for eccentrics.

I have tried a variety of Linux distributions. Frankly, I wish I could like it more. I love the idea of Linux and Open Source generally. But let me provide a perfect, albeit unusual, illustration of the difference with Windows that can turn off the non-geek user. I sometimes write in Korean Han Gul. To be able to do this in Windows requires about a half-dozen keystrokes, clicks and window views to configure the computer. Once done, I can switch back and forth from English to Korean (or Japanese and a dozens of others, if I choose to set it up that way) with one keystroke. It could not be simpler. In Linux? I searched off and on for months. My conclusion? It is possible to input Korean on a Linux box, but it would require installing separate software and definite geekiness to actually be able to make anything work. I simply gave up - and I do not give up easily in such matters.

I do hope none of this comes off as support for Microsoft. I consider Bill Gates as possibly being the devil (and Steve Jobs, his henchman). Windows is maddening with its constant security patches and 700 megabyte Service Packs etc. My goal - if I had one - would be to one day have a computer with not one piece of Microsoft software on it - indeed, not one piece of any software that one has to pay for. That day is still a ways off, I’m afraid. Linux might be what such a computer would be based on, but it is not there yet. Soon, I hope. For now, I’ll stick to XP and now and then boot up Linux just to play and maybe learn a bit.

Fin.