Linux: The Joe Sixpack Strategy (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Linux: The Joe Sixpack Strategy (ZDNet)

Posted Nov 4, 2008 22:09 UTC (Tue) by PaulWay (✭ supporter ✭, #45600) [Link]

Why use cloud storage at all? Why doesn't this magical tool simply repartition their hard disk to make some space for a Linux install, keep their files where they are, and set it up as a dual-boot machine? Then, if Joe decides to get rid of Windows altogether, it just takes the entries for it out of Grub's boot configuration. Given that Jason's already proposing to sell them a 300GB hard disk for cheap-as-chips prices, why not just back the stuff up onto that?

What you save at this point is the tedious process of uploading and downloading the files, which is always going to be much slower than leaving where they are. Fedora already allows you to do most of this, so really it's just setting up a "Make it so" option in the installer to just step through and use sensible defaults.

However, this installer idea is really a cloud-cuckoo land proposal, since Jo Sixpack is going to say "why bother switching when I can do what I do at the moment with Windows?" You're going to have to make going to Linux EASIER than staying with Windows, which is only really possible when they're going to update. About the only other thing you can do is to make Jo Sixpack care about switching to Linux so much that she wants to do it of her own volition. We're already doing this with the people we can.

The other ideas that Jason talks about are good, and I for one would love to see some ads like the PC/Mac/Linux ads that Novell did on TVs and in print. I know others disagree about this strategy, but given the amount of fundraising things like the Atheist Bus campaign got recently I think we are well able to get more than just a token mention in the media.

Joe Sixpack does not install OS

Posted Nov 5, 2008 11:50 UTC (Wed) by khim (subscriber, #9252) [Link]

Joe Sixpack will never install OS - that's for advanced users.There are migration programs for Windows and it's probably a good idea to make one for the Windows=>Linux transition, but I don't see why the cloud will be involved...

Quality rant

Posted Nov 5, 2008 0:36 UTC (Wed) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link]

Most people don't even know what MSWindows is, good luck explaining them what Linux is. People don't like change, they rather keep using crappy software which fails them often, but which they're familiar with and does more or less what they need, than to use something else which, although technically better, is different.

The main problem is that the quality standard for software is too low, for both open and closed source. With one of the results being that computers are seen as unreliable, flaky things. This is also caused by faulty hardware, so it's not just a software problem. Of course that standard is set by people themselves.

Best time to convert people to Linux is after their system is broken by virusses. For the second time, within months. While running anti-virus software.

Flaky computers are not normal, and "It just does that now and then" shouldn't be the answer to "Umm, why did the computer crash?"

For now asking people to jump to Linux is like asking someone who's in a leaking boat and knows where all the holes are, keeping the thing barely afloat by holding a few holes close and pumping the incoming water out, to jump into another boat. If you don't have a high opinion of boats, you're not quick to jump ship.

Quality rant

Posted Nov 5, 2008 8:54 UTC (Wed) by michaeljt (subscriber, #39183) [Link]

At the risk of being controversial (a.k.a looking like a troll), I would like to point out that between Ubuntu and XP (don't want to compare Linux and Windows, but you can extrapolate as you like), XP will provide a ceratin class of users with a much more stable experience. Granted, the Linux kernel is probably more stable than the XP one. But the kernel is only one of the elements that the user interacts with. An informed user I know tried out both XP and Ubuntu with an open mind (well perhaps not, since I have a certain bias towards the second), and after issues with the printer not working properly under Ubuntu, OpenOffice.org not working properly with Word documents that they badly needed (or exporting them properly) and similar - and almost no issues with XP, where they used a restricted account - the final decision fell clearly with XP. I could quote several other, similar examples. The main gist is usually that some application or feature that the user badly needs does not work reliably on a Linux system, or the user needs third party software which they can run and use without any assistance on a Windows system.

I know that there are reasons for all of this, but try to explain this to an intelligent but non-technical user (expecially the sort who doesn't usually install random downloads from the internet into their OS kernel) who in the end just sees that one system works for them and the other not. Trying to get that sort of person to switch to Linux gives me a bad conscience.

Quality rant

Posted Nov 6, 2008 3:46 UTC (Thu) by i3839 (subscriber, #31386) [Link]

I'm in a controversial/ranting mood, so don't hold back. ;-)

Printers are a touchy topic, I'd rather not talk about them (I more or less hate the things, except for good laser printers). Printers woes are, in my experience, OS independent. You just need to be lucky. I had an old laser printer which was so old it had no windows 2k/XP drivers, only 95/98 ones. I got it from someone running XP. The thing used a prorietary, undocumented protocol, and no Linux drivers were available either. Luckily a reversed engineered driver for a similar model existed, so adapting that one I got it working under Linux. Rather ironic that a MSWindows only printer works better under newer linux than newer MSWindows. The sad thing is that the thing, ten years old it may be, printed better than the new HP crap one, although only in black and white (but colour prints on cheap printers aren't worth existing anyway).

Other worthy printer anectode is that the same HP printer didn't work out of the box on an Apple. That with the drivers for the right OSX version from the included CD installed. It only (sort of) worked when I remembered Apple uses cups and went to cups' 631 webpage and installed the thing manually. After that the OSX part of the printing system still wasn't convinced, but if you nudged it firmly it did print.

My memories of getting printers to work in MSWindows are luckily fading, it's a while ago thankfully.

I don't understand why people use things like *Office. I succesfully avoided using crap like that, having used Exel and Powerpoint once, and MSWord not too often either. My impression of OpenOffice is that it does a jolly good job of being as crap as MSOffice. I pity those that think they badly need something like that. May their live be short and not too painful.

If a system "works" for people, however painfully, and they seem to be content with it, let them be. If I see what mysterious rituals people develop while "using" their computer, I sure don't want to be the one breaking that magical, mystical bond of (not) understanding. I don't want to be the one that transformed all "computer problems" into "linux problems".

The virus broken XP system I encountered was owned by an intelligent, but non-technical sensible user. My brother installed Linux on it after the second disaster with XP.

I've little experience with Ubuntu, just seen it here and there and installed it once or twice. I'm not impressed with it at all. My remarks about lack of software quality also apply to Ubuntu and Linux in general.