Today I saw an article by Walt Mossberg, a well known tech journalist, on the subject of Linux for the average user; more specifically, the Dell computers with preinstalled Ubuntu. Mossberg covers many issues that are wrong with Linux today, from a touchy mouse to the volume program crashing.
While my first reaction was shock at how he didn’t know some of the simple tasks to get things working. Then I started to think about his audience and my tone quickly changed. This article is targeting the slightly above novice level, someone who can use a computer’s basic functions, but may have issues solving difficult problems. As much as geeks like to believe that everyone is a power user, the former is really the average user.
The main problem I have with Linux today is due to X11, the backend behind all the GUIs. This piece of the puzzle controls almost all aspects of the GUI, the resolution, the mouse, keyboard, and many other pieces of hardware. The idea of this is a good one, but it is poorly done for a Linux newbie (or even some advanced users).
Let’s take one of the problems that was brought up in the article; the mouse. To change anything with the mouse it requires you to edit the xorg.conf file in Ubuntu. This is the file containing all of the settings for X11. If you improperly set something in this file you are dropped back into a command line. That means you have to know how to fix the problem via command line. This is unacceptable if you want to get novice computers users to run Linux.
Another issue that was brought up was playing MP3s and DVDs. While I agree this is a horrible for a newbie, it is all due to the US government and patents. To be able to legally play either one of these file formats the Linux distribution has to pay a licensing fee. By keeping these aspects out of the distribution they essentially protect themselves from a lawsuit. Ubuntu has made it easier to play these files after the computer is setup by downloading the correct components when they are required.
Until someone is able to fix these problems Linux will never be a major player in the consumer world. I personally switched away from running Linux on my main machines due to many of these issues. Solving the problems just would take too much time and it was no longer worth it.
