Forget Linux, We Need Fisher-Price Computers

Every time we get something new we have to learn how to use it. Get a new DVD player, and you have to learn the new remote, menus, etc. Get a new watch you have to learn how to set, turn on/off the alarm, use other features, etc. Every time a new version of windows comes out people learn how to use it. If someone switches to a Mac they have to learn how to use it, and for someone coming from using Windows a lot of stuff is counter intuitive, but it is marketed as easier and better so people believe it.

But Linux is that hard geeky thing therefore we shouldn't bother with it. I showed my aunt my linux desktop because she is afraid to use her $2000 laptop because it might break, someone had told her about it before, but went into the whole it's hard and you'll need a geeky friend. When she saw my desktop she said, "but I thought it was hard." I said i"t's like windows you click on the pictures and stuff happens."

Why is it harder to click on icons on Linux than Windows? Linux is easier to install and configure than Windows, and applications use the same methods since forever. If somethings breaks and you need the CLI to fix it Linux has a better CLI to do it in, with a lot more help available.

IMHO, whenever someone e.g. answers a question in a forum with a bash command, then that stereotype is inadvertently propagated. When that happens the trolls come out from under their bridges to proclaim "See, see, Linux is not ready for prime time. Look at what you have to do to accomplish a normal task".

I've taken to adding a disclaimer whenever I send a command line meant to help a user. Basically I say something like "There is a way to do this from the GUI. However I don't know which GUI you have, and besides which it would take 100 times as much explanation (plus pictures) to explain how to do this via the GUI. I know that you likely cannot duplicate this by yourself. You don't have to duplicate it. Just copy/paste it and all will be well."

Of course fanbois of any ilk will always find excuses to bash the other tribes. :)

It is in many cases faster and easier to do things from the command line. If the sacrifice is that some Windows users will read that and run away, so be it.

@bigg: I agree with you. My point is simply that in certain circumstances we are giving more ammunition to those that are looking for any way to discredit us. And that is possibly one additional way the myth continues to live.

And by "we" and "us" I mean Linux users. I am not trying to imply that I am affiliated with any "official" Linux anything in any way.

The console may be easier, but most people feel way, way more comfortable clicking on boxes. And I think we should be providing more of that functionality, not less.

Yep, Carla has a way with words. It is a great article.

A lot of people are willing to learn once you get past their phobias and point out that it really isn't hard for them to do. Treat them as intelligent human beings and many respond as such. Others simply have no interest. Those folks, to paraphrase the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan, should be treated with benign neglect.