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The trouble with Linux: there's too much choice
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Comments (20)
Typical FUD
This type of story is so typical that it's revolting. Linux is not Windows or OSX. The best part about Linux standards is that are so many from which to choose! If you are using a Debian based distribution you have either the Ubuntu repos or the Debian repos which are both well stocked. If you are using Fedora there are plenty of third part repos. In either case, you always have many applications to choose from. If you are not using SUSE, Fedora, or Debian yes things can get complicated. The number of repositories increases quickly, and the differences in package management do as well. In the Linux community, we like this. We like having choices. We like having differences. It's part of what makes Linux exciting.If we just wanted easy to use UNIX, we could go get an Apple Macintosh. You have the freedom to not use Linux. You have the freedom to use only Ubuntu. In either case, you can get that unified experience you want. If you venture out, expect differences. THEY ARE DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS, OF COURSE THEY WILL DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY.
Hogwash!
Is the author intimidated by the breakfast cereal isle in his supermarket? After all, there are so many choices. Isn't it confusing? Should we all just eat corn flakes?
Would the author like to go back to the days when Henry Ford said you can have your Model T in any color you like, so long as it's black? Is he intimidated by all the makes and models of cars available?
Fedora didn't drop F-Spot. It is still in the repository, waiting. The fact that they chose Shotwell as their default for the iso doesn't mean that F-Spot has been somehow banned or that users will assume it is the best photo application for Linux? Windows users know about having application software choices so why would they think Linux is any different? His claim about what thousands of Fedora users will think assumes that they are all dim bulbs. Maybe he should just speak for himself and not project onto a large user community. OTOH, since Fedora has millions of users perhaps a few thousand will be confused.
The author says he is confused and after 12 years he still doesn't understand how software is installed in Linux. Maybe he just isn't too bright. All major distros have graphical package managers that work essentially the same way and all have a search feature built in. He says "many of us are utterly confused by the choice." Please speak for yourself. I am very comfortable with installing software in Linux and most people I introduce to Linux are as well within days. It doesn't take 12 years!
Would the author like to go back to the days when Henry Ford said you can have your Model T in any color you like, so long as it's black? Is he intimidated by all the makes and models of cars available?
Fedora didn't drop F-Spot. It is still in the repository, waiting. The fact that they chose Shotwell as their default for the iso doesn't mean that F-Spot has been somehow banned or that users will assume it is the best photo application for Linux? Windows users know about having application software choices so why would they think Linux is any different? His claim about what thousands of Fedora users will think assumes that they are all dim bulbs. Maybe he should just speak for himself and not project onto a large user community. OTOH, since Fedora has millions of users perhaps a few thousand will be confused.
The author says he is confused and after 12 years he still doesn't understand how software is installed in Linux. Maybe he just isn't too bright. All major distros have graphical package managers that work essentially the same way and all have a search feature built in. He says "many of us are utterly confused by the choice." Please speak for yourself. I am very comfortable with installing software in Linux and most people I introduce to Linux are as well within days. It doesn't take 12 years!
+1
Quoting:Is the author intimidated by the breakfast cereal isle in his supermarket? After all, there are so many choices. Isn't it confusing? Should we all just eat corn flakes?When one learns life under a dictatorial regime (be it Communism or Microsoft), the prospect of choice can be overwhelming.
@gus3:
There is a massive difference between Microsoft and dictatorial regimes. The biggest one is that you can choose to be part of Microsoft's empire or choose to be outside of it. The same can be said about Apple. The only excuse for the author's statements is ignorance. He obviously must not know much about the Linux community...
As a listener to the "GnomeRadar" (excuse me, I mean "TuxRadar") oggcast, of which the author of this piece is a participant, I get the feeling that all but perhaps one of them feel that we'd all be better off if we got rid of every desktop environment but Gnome, and possibly every distribution but Ubuntu.
They keep missing that "Choice", itself, is a choice (i.e. it's not hard to just choose to stick with Gnome/Ubuntu and ignore all the other choices), and the fact that I don't think "getting as many people as possible to switch to Linux no matter what" is really a goal most of us are pursuing.
("Getting as many people as possible into a mindset where they SHOULD switch to Linux", perhaps, but not just everybody...)
They keep missing that "Choice", itself, is a choice (i.e. it's not hard to just choose to stick with Gnome/Ubuntu and ignore all the other choices), and the fact that I don't think "getting as many people as possible to switch to Linux no matter what" is really a goal most of us are pursuing.
("Getting as many people as possible into a mindset where they SHOULD switch to Linux", perhaps, but not just everybody...)
I'm not at all convinced that removing choice would convince people to switch to Linux or make Linux adoption any easier. Choice is one of our great strengths, not a weakness.
Studies once showed a choice between 3-7 choices is optimal for 'humans'.
When people were faced with over 7 choices, they were overwhelmed and it became a burden. So in the ideal situation only the 7 'best' Linux distributions (and only 7 apps for every purpose?) would continue to exist, and then people would stop complaining.
Of course, such a thing would only make sense if the state of Linux distributions was fixed, and if Linux distributions really were different from each other.
When people were faced with over 7 choices, they were overwhelmed and it became a burden. So in the ideal situation only the 7 'best' Linux distributions (and only 7 apps for every purpose?) would continue to exist, and then people would stop complaining.
Of course, such a thing would only make sense if the state of Linux distributions was fixed, and if Linux distributions really were different from each other.
Well, I for one am glad I have more than 7 choices when it comes to breakfast cereal, clothing, cars and almost anything to do with Linux. Last I checked I was still human :)
Quoting:(and only 7 apps for every purpose?)In the cases of Evolution and Seamonkey, that would also be "7 purposes for every app".
Choice is fun, h&ll ive tried six Linux distro's out this week even though im back where i started the XFCE edition of PCLinux OS just cant seem to move away from it no matter how hard i try but its fun trying.
World would be a very boring place without choice well at least when i comes to Linux distros, package choice is good to which is why i probably stay with PCLinuxOS.
@caitlyn now breakfast cereal is different all cereals should be cornflakes that would make my life easier.
Edited for bad grandma and punktuation.
World would be a very boring place without choice well at least when i comes to Linux distros, package choice is good to which is why i probably stay with PCLinuxOS.
@caitlyn now breakfast cereal is different all cereals should be cornflakes that would make my life easier.
Edited for bad grandma and punktuation.
I turned my comments here into an article for O'Reilly:
http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2010/09/are-you-intimidated-by-...
I guess you could say LXer helped inspire me.
Oh, and yes, this is shameless self-promotion :) Hopefully the article will show up on LXer.com soon.
I guess you could say LXer helped inspire me.
Oh, and yes, this is shameless self-promotion :) Hopefully the article will show up on LXer.com soon.
@gus3: What you say about someone coming from a repressive regime is true. Would anyone seriously suggest we reduce the number of cereal choices to make new immigrants more comfortable? Similarly we should not limit our choices to make newcomers feel more comfortable. Removing choice is still a supremely bad idea.
@caitlyn:
I was simply making an observation, based on someone I once knew, who had indeed grown up under the Communist yoke. Her first shopping trip in the States was an errand for a girls' camp. Nobody prepared her for it, and she unfortunately went alone. When she didn't come back, someone went looking for her. She was wandering the aisles, with a dazed look in her eyes and an empty basket.
Three short months later, she had transformed into a "power shopper."
I was simply making an observation, based on someone I once knew, who had indeed grown up under the Communist yoke. Her first shopping trip in the States was an errand for a girls' camp. Nobody prepared her for it, and she unfortunately went alone. When she didn't come back, someone went looking for her. She was wandering the aisles, with a dazed look in her eyes and an empty basket.
Three short months later, she had transformed into a "power shopper."
Caitlyn:
Didn't read your article yet, but this sounds interesting:
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/the_cost_of_to...
If there's too many choices, consumers choose "none" (which may be true for Linux?) Even better, the article states:
"So you arrange so ... ... when people do nothing, they're participating. ... when you do nothing, you're in the plan. You have to do something, sign a form to opt out".
That's a fair description for Windows, except you can't opt out of Windows.
Didn't read your article yet, but this sounds interesting:
http://www.pbs.org/nbr/site/onair/transcripts/the_cost_of_to...
If there's too many choices, consumers choose "none" (which may be true for Linux?) Even better, the article states:
"So you arrange so ... ... when people do nothing, they're participating. ... when you do nothing, you're in the plan. You have to do something, sign a form to opt out".
That's a fair description for Windows, except you can't opt out of Windows.
OK, so now I did read the article, and this is why the cereal - metaphor is limb:
-There's no way you can choose from 100 brands of cornflakes, even not in the United States (at least I hope). But let's assume there's 100 different brands of cornflakes: About everybody would be overwhelmed, and probably they'd buy bread instead. I know I would. -Trying 20 different 'things' is only enjoyable when it's easy. It's easy / convenient to buy one different kind of beer / wine every day, or even test multiple within a few hours. Same for clothes. "migrating" from one pair of trousers to the other, even if it's a totally different brand is easy. You can easily look at 200 TV-screens of a different type before buying one.
But if you're going to buy a house, are you going to try 100 of them for a few days? You must be pretty out of your mind to do so. About the same is true for a Linux distribution. Nonetheless, there are 100 at DistroWatch, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's about 200 of them out there.
So, 'convenience' is why people normally only visit about 10 houses (or only try 10 cars) when they buy one, and not 200. Not that hard, I think.
And did you notice hundreds of millions of people _do_ enjoy wearing a uniform, and are even proud of it? It's a very succesfull uniform BTW, and even considered hip, trendy and successful. I'm pretty sure you know the name of that magic unbelievable revolutionary uniform (called Apple).
Just screaming "uniforms" or "communism" is not going to fix flawed logic which doesn't take those details in consideration, reality is more complex I'd suggest.
-There's no way you can choose from 100 brands of cornflakes, even not in the United States (at least I hope). But let's assume there's 100 different brands of cornflakes: About everybody would be overwhelmed, and probably they'd buy bread instead. I know I would. -Trying 20 different 'things' is only enjoyable when it's easy. It's easy / convenient to buy one different kind of beer / wine every day, or even test multiple within a few hours. Same for clothes. "migrating" from one pair of trousers to the other, even if it's a totally different brand is easy. You can easily look at 200 TV-screens of a different type before buying one.
But if you're going to buy a house, are you going to try 100 of them for a few days? You must be pretty out of your mind to do so. About the same is true for a Linux distribution. Nonetheless, there are 100 at DistroWatch, so I wouldn't be surprised if there's about 200 of them out there.
So, 'convenience' is why people normally only visit about 10 houses (or only try 10 cars) when they buy one, and not 200. Not that hard, I think.
And did you notice hundreds of millions of people _do_ enjoy wearing a uniform, and are even proud of it? It's a very succesfull uniform BTW, and even considered hip, trendy and successful. I'm pretty sure you know the name of that magic unbelievable revolutionary uniform (called Apple).
Just screaming "uniforms" or "communism" is not going to fix flawed logic which doesn't take those details in consideration, reality is more complex I'd suggest.
The Trader Joe's brand corn flakes are mighty tasty. I'd give those a try. That and Xfce.
> -There's no way you can choose from 100 brands of cornflakes...
Sure I can. Which one is cheapest? By and large, corn flakes are corn flakes are corn flakes. The only differentiator is price.
> It's easy / convenient to buy one different kind of beer / wine every day,...
If you like beer or wine. Since I don't really care for either, it's not an issue. Of course, you can try a different brand of corn flakes every week if you want, with about the same degree of convenience.
Sure I can. Which one is cheapest? By and large, corn flakes are corn flakes are corn flakes. The only differentiator is price.
> It's easy / convenient to buy one different kind of beer / wine every day,...
If you like beer or wine. Since I don't really care for either, it's not an issue. Of course, you can try a different brand of corn flakes every week if you want, with about the same degree of convenience.
Quoting:It's easy / convenient to buy one different kind of beer / wine every day,...
You can't do that with an operating system..... unless it's Linux
Depends on how thoroughly you are testing the distro's. I can test one every hour if I want, but it's not going to make much sense. And if I want all my settings / bookmarks / mail imported, then no way you're going to do that - together with installing it - within an hour (even converting from KDE3 to 4 was a PITA, let alone from KDE to Gnome, Fluxbox / XFCE / LXDE etc.)
Price, of course, is not going to be a good criteria when choosing a Linux distribution. Though it will rule out some, off course.
And in my opinion, different brands of corn flakes are just as different as most Linux distributions.
Price, of course, is not going to be a good criteria when choosing a Linux distribution. Though it will rule out some, off course.
And in my opinion, different brands of corn flakes are just as different as most Linux distributions.
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