4 ms·

Ideas Ubuntu should steal from Windows 7

14 points by nreece 17y ago

TallGuyShort 17y ago
It seems that on a lot of these points they fail to realize that they're exactly the reason Ubuntu outperforms Windows in some of these areas. In regard to backup software, they say, "Yes it's available, but why isn't it there by default?" Perhaps it's because Canonical's stated goal is to fit an entire operating system on a single CD. If they crammed in everyone's favorite feature to the base distribution, that wouldn't happen. People are more concerned with getting up and running with OpenOffice, email, etc... immediately. If I want to backup my data, I'll worry about that once I'm back to being productive. I'm happy to just grab it from the repository. Also, I outright disagree with some of their observations about ease of use. They say that Windows is actually pretty good at hand-holding when you "troubleshoot" something. Me? I've never once had any success using the "troubleshoot" tools to fix something. I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself. And I almost laughed when they said Ubuntu should use ideas from Windows UAC... All in all, I really think this article fails to realize the difference between Ubuntu and Windows. I don't think Ubuntu is trying to BE Windows. If anything, they're trying to reaplce it (and I don't even think that's their goal). There's no point in competing with Microsoft if you have the same vision as them. Ubuntu has it's own goal, so does Mac.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  Good arguments. Upvoted even though I disagree with many of them. I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself. That's a lot harder than what the average computer user wants. When I used Ubuntu, I was terrified of the config files, and I hated forum searching to solve problems. It seemed like such an inelegant solution.
  - TallGuyShort 17y ago
    Yeah that's true, and I definitely think that Ubuntu is trying to move in a more user-friendly direction than traditional Linux mindsets. In any case - what has been your experience with the "troubleshoot" tools in Windows? It's not that I'm arguing the point with you, I really do think they seem easy to use. My only problem, is that it's never actually succeeded in fixing or diagnosing the problem I was having. Am I alone in this?
    - zimbabwe 17y ago
      I would have to try Vista/Windows 7 to weigh in. I don't have pleasant Windows experiences at all, but I can't say right now that they haven't become a lot better.
    - dan_the_welder 17y ago
      My experience has been that after a year or so using Ubuntu I am on a learning curve, which was a bit frustrating at first. My legacy Windows XP install makes me want to bang my head on the wall.
  - daleharvey 17y ago
    "troubleshoot" is an inelegant solution as well, which is one of the reasons I think ubuntu would be better off avoiding it. the ui should either work, or tell the user why it doesnt work, troubleshoot is a band aid.
  - InkweaverReview 17y ago
    I have to say that Ubuntu's forums and documentation aren't worth hardly anything. The forum is overloaded and there are so many new threads that very few of the threads will ever be touched or answered. The documentation covers the basics, but it rarely helps if there is a problem. I had a problem with graphics card issues last year and spent a couple weeks of research before finally finding a way to fix the problem myself. The forums and documentation didn't help. And I found numerous other people asking the same question but not getting any answer. After I found the solution I posted it on their forum threads.
- For_Iconoclasm 17y ago
  In my experience, the people on the Ubuntu forums only know how to solve trivial problems. There are tons of searches in Google that result in links to the forums where somebody is asking "Hey, this is my situation, can anybody help me?" only to see a response that is irrelevant or no response at all. I had to dig through the X.org wiki, which isn't terribly good documentation, to figure out how to disable mouse acceleration (after experimenting with where to put the settings). Regarding the article: many of these points seem really vague or really nit-picky, like the bit about drive encryption. I also agree with you about Ubuntu not trying to be Windows. I think they want to instill the paradigm if you're going to change a setting, be prepared to do it as a superuser or root ahead of time. Linux security isn't going to change to be more like Windows security.
- philwelch 17y ago
  Typical user behavior is to get productive, never worry about backups, and whine endlessly when their hard drive crashes. Backup software should definitely be bundled. It's a classic opt-in vs opt-out problem--users who have to opt in to install backup software, won't opt in.
  - alextp 17y ago
    Yes, true, although I don't feel any free linux backup tool is really up to the usual standards. Also, automatic backup is a bit annoying for many home users, who do not have the required place to store their data.
th0ma5 17y ago
A lot of times when I read these things, the sort of pro-Linux with pro-Microsoft points articles, I can't help but feel it is paid for by Microsoft. It certainly seems like I have been seeing more and more of these kinds of things over the last few months.
- rbanffy 17y ago
  It seems Microsoft is boosting up their astroturfing groups. Watch out for your karma ;-)
zimbabwe 17y ago
Are there any similar time-blocking options for the Mac? Sounds like a great way to force somebody off the computer.
- DougBTX 17y ago
  Try parental controls in system preferences.
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    Thanks!
rbanffy 17y ago
Seriously lame. Flagged.
rottencupcakes 17y ago
In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11. The windowing system is slow, yet takes more CPU than Windows. Animations (flash, the progress bar in fullscreen gnome-mplayer) bog down the system on low-end graphics cards (which saturate the market in the consumer desktop/laptop market). Scrolling a window up and down can be enough to lag the system into unusability. Microsoft invests hundreds of engineers on making the graphics system fast and responsive on any kind of graphics hardware. Linux needs to catch up in this field before they can play with the big boy. Someone needs to do something with X11.
- bitwize 17y ago
  In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11. In my opinion, that one thing is Unix. The Unix model is full of philosophical details which are appealing to programmers, but which have been thoroughly discredited in the end user space: the minimization and generalization of APIs, the minimization and generalization of the notion of what a "file" is, the process or task based model of interaction, etc. An end user OS needs to be document-centric instead of task-centric. It needs to have a spatial file manager, and support for that needs to be built into the filesystem. It needs a UI spec that is set in stone and backed up with usability research. The I/O patterns for a file on disk, the display, mouse, and sound card are all different; to get the most out of each the OS needs to provide for each specifically. These things are precisely what made the original Macintosh such a revolution: the designers at Apple were willing to completely rethink what an OS is and should do. These days not even Apple is so bold, as its OS is basically a reskinned Unix. (Of course, consumer electronics and not computers are their new primary market and where they focus the most innovation.)
- GeneralMaximus 17y ago
  Right on. I have always felt X was a horrible idea. OS X's Quartz, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty. Is Google going to use X for the Chrome OS or will they roll their own? EDIT: spelling.
  - 17y ago
Zak 17y ago
I have to disagree on a couple points: A single media player for audio and video is not desirable. They're separate and almost unrelated functions; the only time they might belong together is syncing to another device. That's not to say Rhythmbox couldn't use some polish. How, exactly is Gnome's panel crude? I find panel applets far more natural than the system tray for little utilities that aren't part of a larger app, and I really don't care for Apple's dock. Is there some justification for this claim?
- rbanffy 17y ago
  In my experience, many people don't like Gnome because it doesn't look like the desktop they are used to. If I went back some 40 years and presented Gnome to IBM mainframe users, they would complain the lettering is not green on black. But I would love to have the 3278 font available on my boxes. And no, it's not exactly the one on x3270. They got the 6's and 9's wrong
  - Zak 17y ago
    I've found that reaction doesn't last very long. In fact, configuring any Linux desktop to look extremely similar to Windows[0] leads users to think everything will be extremely similar. They tend to be more upset upon discovering unexpected differences than they are when it's obviously different from the start. [0] I say Windows here because I've only seen in with Windows users. Users of any other platform are used to the idea of different operating systems.

14 points by nreece 17y ago

It seems that on a lot of these points they fail to realize that they're exactly the reason Ubuntu outperforms Windows in some of these areas. In regard to backup software, they say, "Yes it's available, but why isn't it there by default?" Perhaps it's because Canonical's stated goal is to fit an entire operating system on a single CD. If they crammed in everyone's favorite feature to the base distribution, that wouldn't happen. People are more concerned with getting up and running with OpenOffice, email, etc... immediately. If I want to backup my data, I'll worry about that once I'm back to being productive. I'm happy to just grab it from the repository. Also, I outright disagree with some of their observations about ease of use. They say that Windows is actually pretty good at hand-holding when you "troubleshoot" something. Me? I've never once had any success using the "troubleshoot" tools to fix something. I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself. And I almost laughed when they said Ubuntu should use ideas from Windows UAC... All in all, I really think this article fails to realize the difference between Ubuntu and Windows. I don't think Ubuntu is trying to BE Windows. If anything, they're trying to reaplce it (and I don't even think that's their goal). There's no point in competing with Microsoft if you have the same vision as them. Ubuntu has it's own goal, so does Mac.

zimbabwe 17y ago
Good arguments. Upvoted even though I disagree with many of them. I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself. That's a lot harder than what the average computer user wants. When I used Ubuntu, I was terrified of the config files, and I hated forum searching to solve problems. It seemed like such an inelegant solution.
- TallGuyShort 17y ago
  Yeah that's true, and I definitely think that Ubuntu is trying to move in a more user-friendly direction than traditional Linux mindsets. In any case - what has been your experience with the "troubleshoot" tools in Windows? It's not that I'm arguing the point with you, I really do think they seem easy to use. My only problem, is that it's never actually succeeded in fixing or diagnosing the problem I was having. Am I alone in this?
  - zimbabwe 17y ago
    I would have to try Vista/Windows 7 to weigh in. I don't have pleasant Windows experiences at all, but I can't say right now that they haven't become a lot better.
  - dan_the_welder 17y ago
    My experience has been that after a year or so using Ubuntu I am on a learning curve, which was a bit frustrating at first. My legacy Windows XP install makes me want to bang my head on the wall.
- daleharvey 17y ago
  "troubleshoot" is an inelegant solution as well, which is one of the reasons I think ubuntu would be better off avoiding it. the ui should either work, or tell the user why it doesnt work, troubleshoot is a band aid.
- InkweaverReview 17y ago
  I have to say that Ubuntu's forums and documentation aren't worth hardly anything. The forum is overloaded and there are so many new threads that very few of the threads will ever be touched or answered. The documentation covers the basics, but it rarely helps if there is a problem. I had a problem with graphics card issues last year and spent a couple weeks of research before finally finding a way to fix the problem myself. The forums and documentation didn't help. And I found numerous other people asking the same question but not getting any answer. After I found the solution I posted it on their forum threads.
For_Iconoclasm 17y ago
In my experience, the people on the Ubuntu forums only know how to solve trivial problems. There are tons of searches in Google that result in links to the forums where somebody is asking "Hey, this is my situation, can anybody help me?" only to see a response that is irrelevant or no response at all. I had to dig through the X.org wiki, which isn't terribly good documentation, to figure out how to disable mouse acceleration (after experimenting with where to put the settings). Regarding the article: many of these points seem really vague or really nit-picky, like the bit about drive encryption. I also agree with you about Ubuntu not trying to be Windows. I think they want to instill the paradigm if you're going to change a setting, be prepared to do it as a superuser or root ahead of time. Linux security isn't going to change to be more like Windows security.
philwelch 17y ago
Typical user behavior is to get productive, never worry about backups, and whine endlessly when their hard drive crashes. Backup software should definitely be bundled. It's a classic opt-in vs opt-out problem--users who have to opt in to install backup software, won't opt in.
- alextp 17y ago
  Yes, true, although I don't feel any free linux backup tool is really up to the usual standards. Also, automatic backup is a bit annoying for many home users, who do not have the required place to store their data.

th0ma5 17y ago

A lot of times when I read these things, the sort of pro-Linux with pro-Microsoft points articles, I can't help but feel it is paid for by Microsoft. It certainly seems like I have been seeing more and more of these kinds of things over the last few months.

rbanffy 17y ago
It seems Microsoft is boosting up their astroturfing groups. Watch out for your karma ;-)

zimbabwe 17y ago

Are there any similar time-blocking options for the Mac? Sounds like a great way to force somebody off the computer.

DougBTX 17y ago
Try parental controls in system preferences.
- zimbabwe 17y ago
  Thanks!

rbanffy 17y ago

Seriously lame. Flagged.

rottencupcakes 17y ago

In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11. The windowing system is slow, yet takes more CPU than Windows. Animations (flash, the progress bar in fullscreen gnome-mplayer) bog down the system on low-end graphics cards (which saturate the market in the consumer desktop/laptop market). Scrolling a window up and down can be enough to lag the system into unusability. Microsoft invests hundreds of engineers on making the graphics system fast and responsive on any kind of graphics hardware. Linux needs to catch up in this field before they can play with the big boy. Someone needs to do something with X11.

bitwize 17y ago
In my opinion, there's one critical thing which is keeping Linux out of the non-nerd workstation market, and that's X11. In my opinion, that one thing is Unix. The Unix model is full of philosophical details which are appealing to programmers, but which have been thoroughly discredited in the end user space: the minimization and generalization of APIs, the minimization and generalization of the notion of what a "file" is, the process or task based model of interaction, etc. An end user OS needs to be document-centric instead of task-centric. It needs to have a spatial file manager, and support for that needs to be built into the filesystem. It needs a UI spec that is set in stone and backed up with usability research. The I/O patterns for a file on disk, the display, mouse, and sound card are all different; to get the most out of each the OS needs to provide for each specifically. These things are precisely what made the original Macintosh such a revolution: the designers at Apple were willing to completely rethink what an OS is and should do. These days not even Apple is so bold, as its OS is basically a reskinned Unix. (Of course, consumer electronics and not computers are their new primary market and where they focus the most innovation.)
GeneralMaximus 17y ago
Right on. I have always felt X was a horrible idea. OS X's Quartz, on the other hand, is a thing of beauty. Is Google going to use X for the Chrome OS or will they roll their own? EDIT: spelling.
- 17y ago

Zak 17y ago

I have to disagree on a couple points: A single media player for audio and video is not desirable. They're separate and almost unrelated functions; the only time they might belong together is syncing to another device. That's not to say Rhythmbox couldn't use some polish. How, exactly is Gnome's panel crude? I find panel applets far more natural than the system tray for little utilities that aren't part of a larger app, and I really don't care for Apple's dock. Is there some justification for this claim?

rbanffy 17y ago
In my experience, many people don't like Gnome because it doesn't look like the desktop they are used to. If I went back some 40 years and presented Gnome to IBM mainframe users, they would complain the lettering is not green on black. But I would love to have the 3278 font available on my boxes. And no, it's not exactly the one on x3270. They got the 6's and 9's wrong
- Zak 17y ago
  I've found that reaction doesn't last very long. In fact, configuring any Linux desktop to look extremely similar to Windows[0] leads users to think everything will be extremely similar. They tend to be more upset upon discovering unexpected differences than they are when it's obviously different from the start. [0] I say Windows here because I've only seen in with Windows users. Users of any other platform are used to the idea of different operating systems.