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This is a response to an article I recently read about the growing number of windows users migrating to Linux, and the consequences there of.

I completely agree that Linux is what it is because of the natural evolution of the OS from the ground up. Linux’s strength lies in the fact that it is open, has choices and does things it’s own way. As a user that came from a Windows background, I will be the first to admit that the learning curve is great, but entirely worth it.

One thing that I always ask myself when reading about Linux adoption is, "Is wide spread Linux adoption what we really want?" By this I mean, do we really want to put ourselves into the position that Microsoft currently holds? I for one am slightly concerned by this notion. The beauty of this is that if "Linux" becomes the number one OS for consumer desktops, it will not be controlled by a single corporation. This is a problem for end users though

If we really want Linux to become a widely used desktop OS, we need to remove the OS from the user experience. This is why the learning curve is so high, as every OS has a way that it does things. We will never be able to remove the OS from the user experience because each use is different. Again, here lies the beauty of Linux, as it can be customized to work exactly as the user wants it to.

I am not one to put Linux in a box and make it so that there are less choices, and thus less freedoms, but I am a supporter of the Linux Standard Base. I am also a supporter of a unified Package Management system. I don’t believe that they must become part of every distro though. Standardization makes things simple. If a platform is to be widely adopted, it needs to be able to be supported. If a distro chooses to opt out of a standard that is set in place, that is fine and more power to them! However, I would not expect them to be a major player in the desktop market.

As a user of a Debain based Linux distro (Sidux), I always feel much more comfortable doing things on Debian based systems. I’ve never felt comfortable on a system that uses rpms as packages, nor on a suse machine. I love the fact that they have grown so large (and PCLinuxOS is pretty cool, too). However, when a new person comes up to me and is finally ready to make the switch, I would be stupid to recommend something that I am not familiar with.

My little brother is a good example. I was very excited to set him up with a dual booting machine (Ubuntu and Vista) as I knew he would still want to play computer games and use software that isn’t available on Ubuntu (yet). After a few months, he called me up looking for help as his computer wouldn’t boot any longer. It turns out that he wasn’t using his linux partition at all, and had filled his 150G Vista partition. As Vista doesn’t include ext3 drivers, the other half of his 300G hard drive was sitting there without being used. So, the inexperienced user that he is, he decided to remove the linux partition so that he could use that hard disk space for more stuff. Unfortunately for him, this wiped his GRUB install and there went his boot.

How do we help users like my little brother? He doesn’t really care what he is using, as long as it works, and doesn’t mind paying for software. Luckily for him, he was broke enough that he didn’t go out and buy a new copy of vista (his machine was refurbished and didn’t come with disks) and instead decided to install gOS after my recommendation. There are many people though that only use their computer as a tool and don’t mind paying for the OS, Office Suite and more.

My question for you is, how will Linux fill the role in their lives if it isn’t standardized? Software will be hard to install, they will never touch a config file, and the system won’t be customized to work the way they want it to. They will use the default options and just click OK without reading any prompts that the computer puts in their way.

I guess a bigger question is, should we be pushing for such a user to be using Linux anyway?