Modify Colors
Recently I have been thinking about the question of who should use Linux? Some might say that everyone should use Linux, but I disagree. (Wait! Hold off on the hate mail for just a sec. The truth is, I don’t think that any operating system should be used by everyone.) I don’t always feel comfortable recommending Linux to everyone, nor would I feel comfortable recommending Windows to everyone (anyone, usually.) Operating systems, at least those made today, just don’t suit everyone equally. This returns me to my original question: who should use Linux?
For someone who only uses their computer for basic tasks, Linux can do everything that other operating systems can for a lower price, both in terms of hardware and software, just as easily. In other words, for basic computing tasks, I would definitely recommend Linux. Likewise, for a real geek, I would recommend Linux for obvious reasons.
So who wouldn’t I recommend Linux for? People in between these two extremes. It seems to me that the group for whom Linux does the least is power users who aren’t interested in getting into the details of the operating system. This would be the group of people who would be interested in messing around with things, but not with messing with text configuration files and the terminal to fix or change things. There is almost never a need for a basic users to mess with anything outside of the GUI, but for more advanced tasks, it can still be nessessary.
I realize that this topic is likely to draw a fair amount of heated discussion, but, that said, I am curious to see what you think. Specifically, do applications like Ubuntu Tweak fill this apparent gap?
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You are taking the perspective that GNU/Linux is simply a tool and people should choose tools based on whether it helps them get their immediate tasks done more quickly and easily. That position is very short sighted and ignores many of the larger issues at play.
When you begin to examine the choice of technology in terms of their impacts in the realms of politics, society, social movements, human rights, the environment, education and the economy, you begin to see that GNU/Linux offers a number of distinct advantages. I can’t go into all of them, but let me give as an example the environment. Currently Global Climate Change confronts humankind with the greatest threat which it has ever faced. There have been 5 major die-offs of species in the history of the earth and all of them were probably caused by changes in temperatures. For instance 251 million years ago, the Permian Age ended when global temperatures rose between 6-8 degrees Celsius. Between 80% and 90% of species disappeared. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that in the coming century global temperatures will rise between 1.4 – 6.4 °C over preindustrial levels if present trends continue. Although it is difficult to predict exactly when, eventually we will kill off most of the world’s species if we fail to change our emissions of greenhouse gases, especially CO2. In fact a recent poll of biologists found that the majority believe that we are currently entering the 6th major species die-off.
Computers and other kinds of electronics are a major contributor of Greenhouse Gases. According to a 2004 study, the fabrication of a new desktop computer and a 17 inch monitor requires 6400 megajoules of energy and 1.8 tons of raw materials. In contrast, it only takes about 500 megajoules to operate a computer for a year. (Roughly 80% of the total energy is consumed in the fabrication compared 20% in the operation of the computer.)
In other words, the best way to cut greenhouse gasses is to avoid buying new computers and to run old computers as long as possible. GNU/Linux and FLOSS (free/libre/open source software) allows us to reuse old hardware and avoid these unenvironmental upgrades. Proprietary software companies like Microsoft promote planned obsolescence and frequent hardware upgrades, because new computer sales generate more sales of their software. Microsoft designs its software to exponentially require more and more resources, so that consumers are forced to buy new hardware (and thus buy new software as well). In contrast, FLOSS companies don’t have a financial interest in forcing consumers to continually upgrade their hardware, because their profits are based on services and support, rather than license for new software. Red Hat earns the same amount of money whether the customer is running Pentium IIIs or Core 2s. Notice how all the major distributions of GNU/Linux allow people to run light window managers like Xfce and IceWM, thus reducing the environmental impact of computers and reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. If you care about the survival of our planet, you will chose to use FLOSS.
If you care about these issues, I invite you to read my activist guide to reform the computer industry:
http://66.150.224.204/amos/BetterUpgrade–ActivistGuide.pdf
I agree to the post to a certain extent, however, allow me to add that the in-betweens, as long as they are willing to learn and curious are alright. I am somewhat an in-between– I use a lot more software and utilities than normal users under Windows and love to tweak my software. I am the administrator at home who will test different anti-virus, firewall, clean up the mess, and so on for the home PCs.
I hopped to the Linux bandwagon not too long ago, I couldn’t really remember the commands and understand the syntax, but survivable as the internet is full of solutions. As long as one is curious enough, dare to explore, and ask for help, I think it is fine, and most importantly do not mind going out of comfort zone and start learning again.
I personally think gamers, unique software users (eg., accounting, CAD, and so on), and someone who is afraid to fail and be humbled are not suitable for Linux. Comparatively, it is harder for one to fail in Windows environment, you won’t get into situation where you have no wifi, no display, and etc as long as you know what is a driver and where to download it.
In contrast to the previous poster I think you’re quite right. I’m a power user in that I use a great variety of applications and programmes, but was never much interested in what is under the hood. I like to have things done in a certain way and it’s quite difficult to find good solutions when you become a newbie again all at once. Examples I like /home to be on a separate partition. This led to quite some unexpected difficulties as the partitions weren’t well defined in fstab after an upgrade of the kernel (I run Ubuntu 8.04). In the first month I had more freezes that in the last 4 years of XP due to firefox and flash and the wrong ATI driver and for a few other reasons. My external hard disks don’t automount and are only mounted as root. Dutch speech synthesis isn’t available including much adaptive software that my disabled daughter uses.
In my blog you will find dozens of problems like that.
I have no problem using the terminal and I quite like the robustness and the security of Linux. Ubuntu is faster on my pc and my hard drive is much more quiet (no virus, malware scans, etc). I’ve been dying to part from M$ because I hate the co. and its policy and I’ totally in sync with the community effort that Linux is. But it isn’t always easy. And I have to get back to XP now and then when I can’t get things done in Linux. And that is my main frustration: I would like to leave MS altogether but this is not yet possible.
This entire post is a croc of $%^#.
Power users exist on every platform and the use of that power varies by the very toolsets available on that platform.
Command Line is a power tool to a power user in Linux. Just as a GUI might be to a windows power user.
These “power users who aren’t interested in getting into the details of the operating system”, are fictional characters dreamt up in YOUR idea of what YOU want Linux to be.
This is the most ill conceived post I’ve yet read.
Power users come in all kinds. A writer could be a power user and OpenOffice.org/LyX/FireFox could do it all. These days, a power user is not necessarily one who tweaks hardware in any way. A power user may be one who actually uses most of the features of bloatware proficiently.
I have been a power user all my computer-centric life. I was devoted to adding more decimal places/faster number crunching in the 1960s and 1970s. In the 1970s and 1980s, I designed bigger and better particle accelerators. In the 1990s I handled 300 e-mails a day when I was a house husband and the kids were at school. In the late 1990s I applied IT to education and came up against a brick wall until I discovered GNU/Linux. Now I am a power user in education, constantly frustrated by the frogs staying in pots of boiling malware/bugs/Wintel. While I have compiled the kernel once or twice and I prefer the command line for almost everything, that is only a few percent of my effort. Power usage is in the GUI these days.
There is no reason GNU/Linux should not be the lingua franca of computing for all kinds of users. The timid can use GNU/Linux pre-installed and nicely packaged. The power users of all kinds can thrive in it, too. The wide spectrum of users of IT between these extremes can do with any OS. They are not fussy if it works and GNU/Linux works.
There was a time when GNU/Linux was for geeks only but that passed with KDE and GNOME. Anyone can pick up a mouse and make things happen these days. I have seen grade one students thrive on GNU/Linux after a couple of demonstrations and a little practice. Some of them become power users. Some are timid. Most are in between. The only thing holding any of them back is development of hand-eye coordination.
The OS is almost irrelevant to ordinary users. They use what works. I believe users of GNU/Linux will be more satisfied with the result when they are mature. Eventually the others will grow up and realize they are pawns of M$.
As for diversity being good, there is no doubt but people can be diverse in the BSDs, GNU/Linux, Solaris etc without being slaves to MonkeyBoy.
I moved my mother to Linux. It works great for her. No complaints after this move. When she was on Windows I had to help her a lot with malware. For example IE was a mess with many extensions installed for this and that. Several times she also ran into problems with viruses, which was really a pain for me to fix. last, the bottom pane in windows was full all of sorts of running applications (very user unfriendly!) increasing boot time to the unbearable.
As I do not like to work for free for the world richest man I told her Linux was a new Windows version, and installed it. In this way the transition got accepted and smooth.
She is now running Gnome. Mostly using Firefox, OpenOffice.org, F-Spot (imports from her digital camera), and Pidgin.