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This is the reason why I don't understand that people say that Linux is for "technical" users while Windows is for regular consumers. In Linux it's easier to i

• keyboardP 14y ago
  How exactly is a regular customer going to know what to type and where? Many have trouble with a GUI, let alone a CLI. And Archlinux is just one of many distros and has its own idiosyncracies (e.g. "Pacman" isn't going to work on Ubuntu out the box). Installation of crapware has nothing to do with ease of installation, you've just purposefully made it seem drawn out. You could've just said Google "CD to MP3" and a few results down is a "how to" guide that uses the open-source CDex program - with a step by step guide.
  • webreac 14y ago
    I am a linux user (linux mint cinnamon). When I need a new software, I launch the software manager, I type in the search criteria. This gives me a list of software. When I click a software, I have a list of users feedbacks and an install button. When I click install, it asks for my password and that is all. When I am on the command line and I type a command that is not installed, I get: jef@sweethome ~ $ 7z The program '7z' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing: sudo apt-get install p7zip-full I just need to do copy paste and type in my password. Sometimes, the software is not in the repository (for example xbmc), but the commands to type, or the installer to launch are clearly indicated on the site. I was a windows user, software installation (and removal) is a lot easier now.
    • scrumper 14y ago
      > I am a linux user (linux mint cinnamon). When I need a new software, I launch the software manager, I type in the search criteria. This gives me a list of software. When I click a software, I have a list of users feedbacks and an install button. When I click install, it asks for my password and that is all. Which isn't all that different to the app stores on other platforms. It's quite a long way from Aardwolf's command line pacman stuff above though.
    • keyboardP 14y ago
      I have Ubuntu and the software manager works fine. I was just responding to the the comment that somehow the command line is easier than Windows's GUI for a regular user. Windows 8 and, presumably, future versions of Windows will have the same store format. Regardless, I think your XBMC example highlights the difference. Ask a user to click on "Windows" from the XMBC download page and immediately the familiar installer starts downloading. Do the same for Linux and you're taken to a Wiki page. I doubt many regular users would know what Linux distro/version they're running let alone feel comfortable typing in those lines. For example Ubuntu, which is likely the most popular distro, includes these instructions: "Make sure to have the multiverse repository enabled, see /etc/apt/sources.list, it is needed for libfaad0, otherwise you get xbmc: Depends: xbmc-data (= 2:10.00~svn35648-lucid1) but it is not going to be installed E: Broken packages For more details, see the HOW-TO install XBMC for Linux on Ubuntu, a Step-by-Step Guide page" The guides are more wikis the user has to read. This is where I think the familiarity and standard installer process of Windows outshines the ease of Linux. As for the crapware and such, that's a different issue which, as seen from this post, is a problem with Windows software more than Linux.
      • jiggy2011 14y ago
        The solution some sites seem to use is just to look at the user agent. I often his software sites now and if there is a Linux version with an Ubuntu package it just gives me a big button that says "Download for Ubuntu", this either adds a repo or gives me a .deb which is as easy to install as a .msi.
• scrumper 14y ago
  Because the assumed knowledge required to understand the procedure under Archlinux is vast compared to that under Windows. Here are the concepts you need to know in order to do the work under Archlinux: 0. How to load your terminal program 1. The command line 2. Permissions/root 3. Package managers in general 4. pacman in particular (what, it's not the game?) 5. Command line switches 6. Piping 7. grep 8. What "looks OK" means in a Linux package description And that's all assuming you know about MP3s, ripping and what features you need in such a program. Under Windows, you need to know: 1. A browser 2. A search engine 3. A feel for trustworthiness In both cases, experience teaches you what you need to know. The necessary experience is much more easily obtained under Windows than Linux, and it's more generally useful in life. So that's why.
  • smacktoward 14y ago
    Your overall point is correct, but your "under Windows" example is oversimplified. The Windows user still needs to know: 1) What an "installer" is 2) Where on the filesystem it goes when it's downloaded 3) How to navigate to that location in Explorer 4) That double-clicking the installer runs it etc. Some of these are things that you can learn from general Windows usage, but then the same could be said of several of the points you listed under Linux. And there are alternate approaches to installing software in Linux (like Ubuntu's Software Center) that remove the command-line, piping, grep, etc.
    • frogpelt 14y ago
      Parent's example was Arch Linux, not Ubuntu. And it was oversimplified.
      • Aardwolf 14y ago
        It was totally not oversimplified. That is really exactly how it went when I wanted to backup an audio CD once. And it is normally simpler, I mean, if you already know the name of the program you want, it's just: pacman -S gimp Which is of course just as simple as Ubuntu: apt-get install gimp
    • 14y ago
• amirmc 14y ago
  I can't tell if you're being sarcastic (but I'll assume you're not). From my point of view, your comment describes exactly why Windows is easier. In the Linux example you're using the command line with commands folks don't know about ('pacman', 'grep') with flags they'd have to read about ('-S' and "How do you make that vertical line thing?"). Of course they'd also have to understand the output of those commands. The Windows example is largely point and click (using tools people are already familiar with, e.g google, web-browsers etc)
  • jiggy2011 14y ago
    To be fair, almost every modern Linux distro does provide some GUI for package management. In ubuntu you can either search the software store and click "Install" or download a .deb, double click it and click "Install". It's just that experienced users tend to find the command line versions quicker and easier.
  • Aardwolf 14y ago
    I know many people who are, e.g. with some in-house application in some company, able to do this kind of thing, by just having a paper with instructions and following it step by step. I also know someone who is not good with computers at all, but has used DOS before using Windows. She could do just as much in DOS as in Windows, even thought DOS did involve the command line (and lots of word perfect). So if you simply have a printout saying what the command to install something in Linux is, and another printout saying what to click on in Windows to install something, I think that conceptually the Linux one will be slightly simpler. Same also with tech support! In Linux, tech support goes like this: "Please run this command and give me the output". "Now run that command" ok, problem fixed. In Windows it's "click here. do you see that now? Now click that. No, I mean THAT. Do you see a button at the bottom? Yes, that one! Click it. etc....". And finally, if we're gonna be talking to computers in the future, talking is more like a command line interface than a GUI, and despite that is more natural.
• deleted 14y ago
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• bcoates 14y ago
  If I wanted to rip an Audio CD into an MP3 on Windows I would insert the CD, which causes a popup dialog that offers to run the built-in media player that includes MP3 ripping.
  • illuminate 14y ago
    Or open up the iTunes most "know-very-little" persons use to manage their music.
• Silhouette 14y ago
  In Linux it's easier to install something that in Windows. Sure, as long as it's in your distro, and it's the version you want, and you haven't installed anything else that might interact with it from another source. But if any of those three statements is not true, best to start praying to whatever deities you believe in for one of them to help you, because chances are no-one else is going to. The thing that really amazes me is that it's 2013, there are billions of computer-using people in the world running on only a tiny handful of major operating system flavours, the collective loss due to junkware or outright malware is staggering in both economic and quality of life terms, and still none of those operating systems has yet adopted a basic security model that jails applications so by default they can only ever install code, update settings and manipulate documents of their own type. I appreciate that, as Microsoft learned with Windows Vista, overly aggressive access control/user prompting can be counter-productive. Still, many of the behaviours that make user-hostile undesirable shouldn't even be possible at the OS level, and certainly not by default.
  • jiggy2011 14y ago
    Because often applications need to be able to read and write files that have been created by other programs. Some programs also have features which add functionality to other applications. Sometimes this can be useful , in cases such as lastpass and dropbox but other times they can be bad in cases such as spyware.
    • Silhouette 14y ago
      Because often applications need to be able to read and write files that have been created by other programs. I challenge your position that this "often" happens. Stop and look at the different kinds of data you work with and the applications you use to work with it. I bet you'll find a lot of your applications only work with their own formats and/or a fairly small number of other common ones such as standard text/graphic file formats. Even if your applications could theoretically work with many different common formats, say a graphics editor that speaks 30 different file formats or a generic text editor that can edit many different kinds of source file, I bet in practice you only use a handful of those graphic formats or use a few different kinds of text file on any given system. Almost nothing, except for system/comms software that deals with files as black boxes without caring what kind of data they hold, needs arbitrary access to any file type. Would it really be so hard to established a systematic model for these requirements and then actively enforce it, so applications had to disclose exactly which types of data they wanted to access? This could be shown as part of a standardised installation process built into the OS, or at least summarised there and the full details made available to the user (and permissions configurable by that user) from a separate UI later. Keep in mind that to some extent this is already done. On Windows, for example, there is already a database of recognised file types and a database of associations between applications and those types. It's used when you double click on something to open it, or to decide which options to offer when you select "Open with..." on the menu. It's just only used for convenience at present, not enforced as a part of the security model. And there are already standardised install/uninstall UIs on most platforms, but again they aren't enforced so that applications have to play nicely and the OS can forcibly uninstall them in their entirety on user request. Some programs also have features which add functionality to other applications. Sure, so let them announce explicitly when they are installed that they want permission to interoperate with x, y and z other packages, and let the user say no. And make it a pull model rather than a push one: software being installed can grant permission for other software to depend on it, but not change the other software itself. That way, the main software is always in control, not the plug-ins. This is just a smaller-scale version of the principle that the OS should always be in charge of the overall system and should be able to install/uninstall/restrict/authorise any other software according to the user's wishes, and the other software doesn't get a vote.
• lwat 14y ago
  There's no way 'pacman -Ss mp3 | grep rip' and 'pacman -S ripperx' would ever be considered easier than searching in Google and clicking 'install'
  • ryen 14y ago
    Well, it is easier to copy and paste it once you know it ;)