I love Stephen Fry! I find it funny though, that while he went through that whole explanation, he had a Mac next to him, with the least open OS ever!

So, hes a practical idealist and as such, a visionary.
As for children of the transitional experience of our age the mantra should be, "Crack it, hack it, track it, stack it, pack it, and back it."

This comment here pretty much sums up why Linux is still having difficulty even treading water as a desktop.

http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1826490&cid=33931876

Or here for your reading pleasure

1. Confusing distros Just thinking about all the different distros and configurations still gives me a headache. Ubuntu has blunted this somewhat, but even with that you have to get into the Gnome vs. KDE thing, which is damned confusing to a layperson. The worst part of this is trying to download software for Linux off of some website and running into multiple versions with odd notations regarding different distros.
2. Poor documentation Again, Ubuntu helps. But even that is spotty compared to Windows. And the "documentation" website of many distros (and Linux software apps) is little more than a bugfix list.
3. Software, Software, Software this is the biggest problem, and not so easily dismissed as some fans would pretend. My mom, for example, uses special software to interface with her high-end sewing machine. Is it available for Linux? Probably not. Can I just direct her to a clone of equal quality? Probably not.
4. Little support (if not openly hostile) There aren't a lot of places to call for Linux support. And a lot of the places you can go for support on the net are filled with Linuix fanatics who are openly hostile to Windows switchers and newbies. The level of "you don't belong here" attitude towards newbies in Linux circles makes Apple fans look civil.
5. Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user with windows, I can go to a website, download an installer and install my software. with Linux I can install it via the built-in installer. but that only works if said software is in the repository. If not, getting it installed is often a lot more complex than just downloading a file and double clicking on it to install. Which brings me to:
6. Still too much reliance on the command line interface Telling someone to break out a command line and type "sudo apt-get whateverthefuck" is like telling a Windows user to reinstall DOS and learn its syntax.

i would be running linux now except for games. and ironic he's coming thru flash, thats non free software if there ever was 1.

>> ^Croccydile:

This comment here pretty much sums up why Linux is still having difficulty even treading water as a desktop.
http://linux.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1826490&cid=33931876
Or here for your reading pleasure
1. Confusing distros Absolutely identical results if you ask someone using Windows or MacOS for the first time.
2. Poor documentation Distro-dependent
3. Software, Software, Software will come with time and interest, the userbase is nowhere NEAR Windows/MacOS, therefor not everything is supported...yet
4. Little support (if not openly hostile)Outright lies. I've been able to troubleshoot all of my problems through the help of forums and google.
5. Ways of doing things that are confusing to a Windows user Same as #1 Which brings me to:
6. Still too much reliance on the command line interface This can be argued according to which distro you use.


Fix'd.

I've been running Linux on my production machine for 2 years now, after trying it out for a year before that. For out-of-the-box usability, there are several distros that are very close to Windows or OSX and even surpass them in some ways. Ubuntu is a great place to start.

And let's not forget that open-source goes way beyond Linux. OpenOffice, the GIMP image editor, Inkscape vector editor, Pidgin IM, Audacity audio editor, Firefox, Thunderbird... there is a huge list of FOSS applications that can do just about anything you want.

Games, agreed, are more problematic on Linux, but as Tymbrwulf mentioned that is a function of the userbase, if it does catch on the way Firefox did, you can be sure that there will be a lot of Linux game releases. Meanwhile games and proprietary software can be run in VirtualBox.

>> ^IAmTheBlurr:

I love Stephen Fry! I find it funny though, that while he went through that whole explanation, he had a Mac next to him, with the least open OS ever!


Based on Unix, just like Linux...

Not to mention, the fact that Linux doesn't support the major games has some great productivity side-effects

The thumbnail image for this video has been updated - thumbnail added by radx.