Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 8:10 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
In reply to: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP) by CyberDog
Parent article: Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

"I've yet to see a Linux desktop environment that is more user friendly to the common public than the Windows interface"

Then you've never watched a COMPUTER newbie try out both Windows and Linux.

EVERY report I've ever seen says that if you take someone who has never used Windows, and asked them which is easier, Windows or Linux, they go for linux every time. (And IME that's true - when we gave my mum a computer she found linux easier.)

But because Windows is "good enough", when you take someone used to Windows and plonk them in front of linux, they find it hard because it's "different".

Cheers,
Wol

Winning the Linux Wars (MCP)

Posted Jan 9, 2006 16:18 UTC (Mon) by erwbgy (subscriber, #4104) [Link]

In my experience, the person doing the teaching has a big impact on what new users find easier. I showed my mother and father how to you the KDE SuSE desktop and they were both happy users. My brother showed my sister how to use the Windows desktop and she was a happy user. All proclaim that their desktop is the easier, but I'm pretty sure that if my brother and I had swapped groups the "better desktop" verdit would have been swapped too.

You are correct that people find what they know easier. But, at the end of the day, most users don't really care what desktop you give them, as long as they are able to easily do what they want.