Posts by PBelc

My opinion

I am a Windows Sys Admin but I "try" to run some Linux machines at home to get used to it incase one day my job requires it.

My experience:

To much choice, what flavour do I pick, I had to install 4 or 5 distros before I settled on Mint, the average user wont do this when they can just install Windows. The enterprise most likely doesn't have the resource to go through all the testing and user acceptance to do this (I know we wouldn't) especially when we have a platform that already works.

Applications, Windows I download, double click and follow the wizard, easy. Linux I need to use apt-get (Or the software repository in Mint which goes some way to solving this), hope that the dependencies are correct, edit some "unknown" file to set the application up how I want it to work, if I want it to start with the system I have to jump through hoops (still cant get deluged to start at startup) rather than set a service to automatic or put a shortcut in startup. Then what if the app I want isnt in the repos for my distribution, I now have to run some commands to add them, I cant just go and download the app from a website and click to install.

Applications part 2, I have several times at work tried to get to grips with nagios, this generally entails installing nagios then finding it wont run, or the install completely buggering up the system, start again and the same happens. I guess this is version compatibility, fine but if its in the repo and available then it should "just work"

Mapping/mounting a drive, horrendous time to get this working, once you know the commands its fine but the first time I think it took me over an hour and I had to install packages to get smb working properly, alternatively I can click Map a Drive and fill in the GUI. To make it persistent in Linux was easy but no where near as easy as checking a box on the GUI in Windows.

I dread to think what setting up a printer would be like, thankfully I don't have one.

Enterprise level control, no i don't mean "just run a script on your clients", I want centralised control, organisation of my assets, I want constraints set set if I make a mistake it wont propagate to my client (With a script, you don't get this), delegation of control for certain task (I am sure this exists at the client level but what about the enterprise) basically I want a Linux version of AD with all the tools that comes with it.

Thats some of my experience

Linux isn't User friendly for the consumer or the enterprise, running command line to perform simple tasks may be quicker for the elite but it is a dark art to the end user. The Linux community seems to be incapable of seeing this point and believes because their way is faster or considered "correct" then anyone who wants a simple tool/GUI needs to read the manual and gtfo of their forum (I have experienced this nearly every time I have asked for help in a Linux forum, Windows I get a polite thread with helpful responses).

Microsoft provide both command line and GUI for all but the most high level of actions, the GUI is just a wrapper for the command line but it covers all the bases, people are scared of the command line because it allows for mistakes and is harder to remember than looking through control panel for an icon. In the Windows world everyone can do what they want to do with little effort i.e install a printer, new hardware, software, change settings etc in Linux they can't and saying search google/read the manual is not acceptable to perform a simple task.

No matter how good Linux gets unless it becomes more user friendly and the community start to accept that not everyone understands the OS and most just wants things to work, it will never take any significant portion of Microsofts empire.

That way way longer than i meant it to be.....