Thanks for taking the time to reply.
I'm sorry to say that this is not a satisfactory answer. Look around the net - hey, just stay on this site and click on a random link - and you'll see that various Desktop versions of Linux are portrayed as nothing less than perfection. Me and the people around me who have tried the same software (I'm talking 13 years in my case) must be subjected to some strange phenomenon where the most simple tasks seem to require RSI-inducing terminal typing. Fix one thing, something else breaks. Update and things go bonkers. Disable update and
... it updates. Reboot to get sound. Recompile to get wifi. Repeat.
It's 2009, people. Multimedia is ubiquitous, no matter how complex these peripherals are, each and every common-sensed consumer expects them to work without a problem and does not wish to lose time on it. Truth is that the best Ubuntu experience is the one where you have a Windows box running a foot further on the desk, so you can scroll through an avalanche of third-rate forums and half-arsed wikis to find some obscure sequence of terminal commands. In most cases you're trying to find out how to run a windows look-a-like tool or package in your newly found time consumer. Consumers
want this and that. Don't discuss with them whether or not they need it. I'm hinting at a
very wide range of issues here, going from drawing squares in Gimp to having flash whilst browsing.
One of the things I find most troublesome, however, is that not Linux but Windows is the best platform for running FOSS. For some reason (shall we call it "API" ?) these programs run with a minimum of problems on my MS. And don't dare to tell me "We're working on it". I used to "work" on writing Linux software, you spend most of the time peeling back layer after layer of shitty abstraction to find the true reason: bug obfuscation. Ubuntu is probably the worst hack on a hack in existence.
Most of the energy isn't put into bug resolving, btw. The average Ubuntu dev works on polish and gloss, like this incredible progress in boot time. If there's one thing that's possible to learn in the history of operating systems: apps kill competition, not OSs. No applications ? No carrot! The
recent Open Orifice debacle is a very nice illustration that when the going gets tough the hard-working volunteers have better things to do.
Excuses are the trademark of FOSS, not freedom, not liberty, not whatever third-world slogan they can come up with. Excuses are what you normally get for complaining about FOSS. They vary from "your fault", "worksforme", "their fault" to "give it time". Ubuntu is what you get for following this open-minded anti-corporate philosophy: a very shiny car where everything is held together with sticky tape. After a decade and a half I think it's time to reflect on a few
facts:
- Things which work in Desktop linux a la Ubuntu work for one of two reasons: 1) the linux support is provided/pushed by the corporate world or 2) there is a very strong user base on the windows version.
- The Desktop Linux devs apparently lack know-how when it comes to hardware
- People will pay for something if it saves them time
Last August I simply formatted my Linux installation for the last time. I still have a partition with BeOS and one with Minix when I want to fiddle around. I went to the store and bought Vista. 4 hours later I had installed
everything which was on my linux system and more
... for free. The amount of time I saved since then is beyond comprehension. I have time for three extra hobbies now. The standard rhetoric to this from ye olde linux base is "stop bitching". Sorry mate, wherever I roam on the net to read up on H/W or S/W specs there's some bleeding ass punk rambling on about Ubuntu as if it's God's gift to humanity, and I feel like I need to correct that. The Desktop Linux promotion chitchat is nothing more than a bunch of lies. You're lying when you tell people that "it works" and you're lying when you advise people to "give it time".
I truly - from the fuzzy insides of my heart - hope that some major-league vendor will start a huge campaign to promote Ubuntu on their netbooks/laptops/dekstop to see the truth exposed in prime time. It'll just be a matter of days after that. The problems will be answered with excuses. It'll be the fault of the evil corporations.
Ubuntu is something to be ashamed of, not something to proudly shout through a megaphone.