Your timing is just bad. I'm 50 years old, and in grade school, I was reading Bullfinches Mythology, the dictionary, and anything else dealing with words. I read Lord of the Rings, The Silmalarian, and even H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine" so many times I nearly had it memorized. By the time I was out of high school, it faded. From what I've seen of myself and trying to figure I may have had ADHD, OC, or even Aspengers. Yes I know they all say "I'm different, so I'm Aspengers" It's very, very difficult to tell precisely, but I had the same problem you mentioned. Yet I "grew out of it" and chances are, it may be ADHD, undiagnosed. My mother always said I was an active child, and the doctor told her not to medicate me, because basically I was just active. I feel that was the best idea ever. I'm not sure if there is tests you can do for ADHD but ask your doctor. How to regain that focus however, the other people may have pinned it down. I wish I had that focus and drive. I have around 50 books on my library I want to read :). Good luck!

At last a linux user who really knows what is needed!

I agree 100% on all of it, I wanted to pat your back on a few other things.

- Stop "shipping early and often." Ship late (i.e. once bugs have been fixed/stabilized) and rarely (no more than once every couple of years).

I SO agree with this. I'm sick of Mozilla's updating Firefox every 2 weeks. FOLKS IT DOESNT NEED AN UPDATE EXCEPT FOR SECURITY OR BUG FIXES! (ahem)

This is why I love Debian. It's updated when it needs it I don't need the latest/greatest KDE. After v4.2 it got rid of the buggy, laggy code. It works fine! And I've seen the latest. - BIG DEAL! Reminds me of what XP was compaired to Win2k. Win2k with a bit of polish.

The biggest thing I want to add to this.

I'm a linux user from early Slackware. I actually installed Slack by just reading the instructions. So what - 15 years? I can't remember. But I remember spending hours trying to track down one oddball piece of code to get program x running. Know what? I'm now 46, I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want to be on the computer for hours on end. I've got a suspection that's what's happening to everyone else. Yes, we want smart phones, and tablets. But we don't want to be tied up behind a desktop anymore.

We don't want an OS that we have to fiddle with, and tinker. We want a secure, lean OS that works out of the box. The security fixes come as fast as possible, and just works.

Give us something that can be installed as easy as Windows. A universal installer would be great, but at least CHECK the installers before you ship. I went though 5 popular distros 2 years ago, and only 1 (OpenSuse12.1) worked on a 4 year old system. All the others just froze up, or crashed. Debian 6 (my last one) has an installer that is even more of a pain in the tail. I personally left because of that installer.

Fix it so we can install drivers from company web sites (cough nVIDIA Choke) instead of having to use the buggy, and SLOW noveau (Debian, you listening?) Don't force us to use something that people don't want.

There is dangerous stuff in linux. Why is GRUB automatically installed? I've had more problems with it ruining my systems than anything I ever used. It seems there's a lot of code for something that's used only briefly. Why do we need backgrounds? GUI versions? Etc? It's just suppose to be a way to boot into another OS, (or kernal) But yet, it's so complex, and so dangerously written, one screw up can lock you out of your OS. There's very few tools to fix it, and work with it, and they don't work half the time. The command line interface is almost useless too. Lets just go back to a simple thing that's installed if necessary.

The only reason people think Windows is easy to install compared to Linux is because they don't do it. Take a blank PC and a fresh Windows install CD and see how easy it is to get running.

Uh. Ok. When was the last Windows you installed? Mine was XP/SP3. Put it in the drive, answer a few questions, and sit back and wait. Yes, I will agree that it's layout is a pain in the neck. (why is it ALL installers want to ask questions thought the install, instead of at the very beginning so you can walk away? Ug!!)

My last linux install was OpenSuse12.1. The only reason for that one is simple.

#1: 90% of the installers doesn't work on various popular distros. Cinnimon, Mint, Ubuntu (of the month), Mephis, etc. OpenSuse12 was the only one that would.

#2 I was a major Debian user (since v4) but that text installer just drove me away. It wanted to DL 600+ megs of stuff from the net, no matter what. I bought DVDs, full versions, no netinstall ones. Always you download 600+ megs or you don't get any GUI, and you may not even get a working /system/

The biggest problem with that? 600 megs is 6 HOUR downloads. And if it's not installed right? Well reinstall and wait another 6 hours.

No I walked

Microshaft has many things wrong with it's OS, but installation they've nailed. Both with programs and their OS.

And incase your wondering; I'm a firm linux user. But I can see the flaws.

I tend to agree with this. Although I use YAST/Synaptic on .RPM and .DEB OSes, this is NOT as good as Windows 'download one file, and install' method. This is one of the few things I found Microsoft has done right. There is several problems with the repository method. a) You've got to go look for the repositories. Yes there's the 'universe' and 'testing' ones. But what if you have an odd-ball program? Then you got to search, sometimes in vain for a repository. b) Repositories many times are WAY out of date or have bad links. c) or programs never are on it. Pidgin is a good example. Great IM, lousy support. Only a TAR/GZ file and if it needs upgraded, your out of luck unless you have the time, patience and desire to install it. I tried once. I spent nearly a week, finally just tossed it. Now I use Mozilla's Instantbird for it can be installed even without a repository. Lastly, if there's got to be different packages (.DEB, .TAR/GZ, .RPM) why is it, someone can't make a reliable installer? I hear of Alien, never worked well. So why is it someone can't just make an installer that will take any package, and install it regardless? If needs to get files off the net, then that's fine. Or like Instantbird. Why do we need installers? Why can't a decompress, put a link on filex and go work? Instantbird does just that. XnView as well.

The concept of 'you don't own anything any longer' or copyright law is not a true law; it's a corporation law. A law 'of the land' for example - Murder - is one that is enforced by peace officers, and the judicial system. It is also very binding too. As in, your ass is in jail for a long time. Corporation law against individuals, on the other hand is nearly unenforceable, and cannot easily be found out. For now, RIAA/MPAA cannot come into your systems and snoop to see if you have the latest copy of Beaver's song, and find out if you bought it legally or not. Probably not even economically feasible. Yes Corporations perform corporate extortion (IE: RIAA saying "pay us $5,000 for our precious copyright infringement or else we'll sue you into economic bondage) but that is becoming increasingly rare and also it's if they can find out. But onto the topic. Copyright law may say "you cannot do anything but kiss our rumps." But in practically, they cannot do a thing to stop individuals from actually making MP3s of every song they own. (and If I pay money for something, I own it.) Or converting every book, DVD, etc to an open, non-DRM format. The WSJ may be a good paper, but they're missing the big picture. Individuals cannot be stopped, and the idea of dying with all this DRM blocked digital works is frankly a dead issue. Only ones who do not want to take a bit of time to exercise their rights and are sheep are at risk.

I run three web sites, including a company's site. All of them have shown significat drops in IE usage, including (Thank goodness) IE6. The faster we get rid of that stain the better for Lady McBeth's mind.

- Kc

Although we can dream, yes? :)

They'll pay off some lawmaker like they're doing still.

- Kc

Now before I'm blasted for being a 'Microsoft fanboi' or such, I will say here, I use Kubuntu 8.04.2 99.99% of the time, for the last 6 months. Now...

--
3.2 No unified installer across all distros. Consider RPM, deb, portage, tar.gz, sources, etc. It adds a cost for software development.

3.3 Many distros' repositories do not contain all available open source software. User should never be bothered with using ./configure && make && make installer. It should be possible to install any software by downloading a package and double clicking it (yes, like in Windows, but probably prompting for user/administrator password).

3.4 Applications development is a major PITA. Different distros can use a) different libraries versions b) different compiler flags c) different compilers. This leads to a number of problems raised to the third power.

AMEN!!! Repositories is NOT the solution. Many programs arn't on repositories, or within that particular version. OpenOffice 3? Pidgin 2.5.5? Neither are on the 8.04.02 repositories. The only reason I can use them, is by chance I found a way of installing OO3 which worked, as well as working with Pidgin. It's easy, but only if your in the know. Which, I might add is; why the frack isn't the install instructions on the main web site? Why is it someone had to write it up in a blog? I say this. If people want to play with ./configure && make && make installer then that's fine. That's their right. But there should be a 1 (or several click) installer like Windows. Yeah, yeah, I hear 'DLL hell' I've yet to see that, and I've worked with Windows since v3.1. I see more 'dependency hell' even with repositories. I can't even install Gnome to try it out.

5.3.2 A lot of web cameras still do not work at all in Linux.

This is easily solved. Hell with the camera's propriotory junk. A simple card reader from Wal-Mart ($20 or so) allows me to read 3 different cameras (including a 3 year old Sony memory stick) and download the files at USB 2.0HS on linux OR windows.

7. A galore of software bugs across all applications. Just look into KDE or Gnome bugzilla's - some bugs are now ten years old with over several dozens of duplicates and no one is working on them.

Agreed 100%. Not to mention bugs come back in newer versions. 8.04.01 worked like a charm on a IBM T22, with only a minor video problem. 8.04.02, the video isn't working at all, and I've had to go get the correct driver. Bugs should be eliminated, and wiped from the code. Especially from the same company, or distro. Why is it that old bugs are corrected, then comes back?

What's worse; they introduce new things in newer versions that compound the problem. 8.04.01 worked like a charm on 2 computers, because they used a text based installer. However, 8.04.02, uses a GUI ONLY installer, which is slower, and a heck of a lot more of a problem to work with. 9.04.01 won't even WORK on my main system, and again brings back new problems that 8.04.02 eliminated.

Not to mention the upgrader is a major joke. I had to completely wipe and reinstall 8.04.02 on my system after the upgrader totally hosed it.

Linux - even Ubuntu isn't close to being able to be used by Joe 6 harddrive. I won't dare install it on my customer's systems even if requested.

- Kc

Fix the program installing problem for good! Repositories isn't the placenta that the linux community thinks it is. Windows 1 download/1 click packaging is FAR superior. (And I'm a Ubuntu user, folks) Pidgin is at 2.5.5 and it's still stuck in 2.4 or such in the Ubuntu 8.04 repository. Believe me, I gave up on Pidgin and use Kopete now, because it's nearly impossible to install without a repository. OpenOffice is still v2.4!

Also make a place where code that is fixed, is used, instead of old code. I installed Ubuntu 8.04.01 and had wonderful luck with it, it's running on a laptop that I couldn't install Ubuntu on before. Then tried 8.10, Guess what? An old bug that's at least 2 years old (Debian 4) popped up. Why is it, an update should have an old bug that should have been fixed and elimated 2 years ago?

I use Ubuntu to *work* not to spend weeks downloading and installing programs.

Fix the bugs! Fix the programming installing problem!

After that, push Ubuntu to get rid of Winders for good.

I've been running Kubuntu 8.04.01/KDE 3.5 since November, and after Dec 1, I haven't started Windows 2k *yet* Once everything was over, reformatted and reinstalled Linux about 4 times to get the bugs worked out, and Oh yes! It runs on both this machine, and a T22 laptop without a bit of a problem. Now I got a 1tb external harddrive, a 250g external harddrive, as well - all installed with EXT3, and do everything I normally did with windows (Including running XPlane, 2nd Life) and even Dreamweaver. Also I want to add; I can use ALL .5tb of harddrive space on my big machine, (Win2k wouldn't go past 137g without extreme danger), and it didn't cost me a cent. I can see why Microshaft is afraid of Ubuntu. When MS can provide all of this, without the DRM, Bloat, that brainless ULA, and security too, then I'll come back. What do they offer instead? Windows 7; which is nothing more than Vista SP3 (or 4 which ever according to the computer journalists) Maybe now MS will get some serious competition. - Kc

Until 2 months ago, I was a Win2k user only. Until someone got me on Linux. Now I regularly get 35 kbps downloads - yes I have a slow cable (all I can afford for now) but before on Win2k, 30 was *tops*. While I constently had to re-set the connection with 'ipconfig /renew' - to the point I wrote a 1 click button script to do that job. Linux NEVER has that problem. I'm looking foward to a much faster connection now. - Kc

It would be best for them if people viewed the gadgets as disposable and simply tossed them after a few years. Must be nice to have unlimited funds you can just "tossed them". I for one don't have $3,000 to toss away every 2 or 3 years just because some company has to make a laptop with hardwired batteries. Poor exchuse they're giving for the practice. With their genus, they could make plastic batteries, and fix it so they could be replaceable. If they can take out and replace the batteries, then so could a reasonable user. - Kc