3 ms·

Speaking as someone who uses plenty of the more obscure features of Excel, I hate the "lets do everything in our browsers!" paradigm. That being said, what rea

by bloaf 14y ago

Speaking as someone who uses plenty of the more obscure features of Excel, I hate the "lets do everything in our browsers!" paradigm. That being said, what really matters for the question "why isn't linux successful" is only: "How easy is it to get the software that does what the user wants?" For an average home user, I think Linux could have been ahead of the curve. All a distro had to do was slap a pretty GUI on their package management system and they would have had an app store where everything was free and easily accessible. The free office replacements are more than sufficient for home users, as are the chat clients, web browsers, and media players.

progrock 14y ago
I agree you've got to make it easy for people to find and install software. It's the same for all OS users though. I know enough Apple and Windows users that have never installed any software on their machines whatsoever. My brother called last week asking how he could share some digital photos with someone, he had over 100MB worth of photos. I suggested he needed to resize them and possibly archive them. He was absolutely clueless. People just want to be able to do something with the least bit of fuss. The goal surely is to make it easier for people to carry out said somethings. Package management could and should be better than it is. I don't believe that an app store is the answer to these issues. I've yet to try an app store that I like (haven't tried Apple's.) Normally it's tricky trying to look for software, and find solid recommendations. Ubuntu's software center offers me little extra. I still resort to Synaptic! If you can't install software easily, then you better offer a good set of defaults.
yesimahuman 14y ago
My argument is more that GUI software available for linux was not revolutionary in the way web apps have been, rather it was full of "lower-quality" windows applications. A better package manager wouldn't have solved that problem in my opinion.

by bloaf 14y ago

progrock 14y ago

I agree you've got to make it easy for people to find and install software. It's the same for all OS users though. I know enough Apple and Windows users that have never installed any software on their machines whatsoever. My brother called last week asking how he could share some digital photos with someone, he had over 100MB worth of photos. I suggested he needed to resize them and possibly archive them. He was absolutely clueless. People just want to be able to do something with the least bit of fuss. The goal surely is to make it easier for people to carry out said somethings. Package management could and should be better than it is. I don't believe that an app store is the answer to these issues. I've yet to try an app store that I like (haven't tried Apple's.) Normally it's tricky trying to look for software, and find solid recommendations. Ubuntu's software center offers me little extra. I still resort to Synaptic! If you can't install software easily, then you better offer a good set of defaults.

yesimahuman 14y ago

My argument is more that GUI software available for linux was not revolutionary in the way web apps have been, rather it was full of "lower-quality" windows applications. A better package manager wouldn't have solved that problem in my opinion.