Linux Again

A few weeks ago I took my annual dip into Linux.  I have several versions that I use for different things apart from this.  The most notable would be Fedora's LXDE spin and DEFT Linux.  Aside from these versions which I use when I have need, I like to take a dip into what I'd call "mainstream" distributions of Linux once a year just to gauge the progress of the OS and I thought I would share my experience on this blog.

This year it was the turn of Ubuntu, specifically the main distribution and also the Xubuntu distribution.  The latter is by far my favourite of the two.  Although Lubuntu has had its moments of charm for me in the past.  Whilst exploring the distributions I look for a number of things.  First and foremost is the ease of use.  Now as a full disclaimer I know my way around Linux and I wouldn't consider myself new to it so my view will always be somewhat skewed by my technical background.  Nevertheless I try to approach the OS with an open mind in the mindset of a new user who is trying to find their way around.

The first Linux distribution I ever used was Mandriva Linux back in 2004.  One thing I liked about Mandriva was that they created their own control centre and various other interfaces to present a user-friendly method of configuration.  My explorations over the years have continued to gauge this usability enhancement and this year as with previous I found myself let down yet again by the sparsity of graphical configuration tools.  You are limited in what you can configure through graphical interfaces and even now 12 years later I find myself still being drawn down into the terminal and using commands to achieve what I need to - this isn't practical in my view for the majority of computer users.  I am only comfortable doing this because I know what I am doing, but as I have said in previous posts even I have broke Linux on more than one occasion.

Linux has come a long way but many of the grievances I and many others have with the OS remain and just don't seem to be a priority at all.  One of the less practical and more superficial grievances is the fact to many people, myself included, Linux is often ugly to put it bluntly.  There are a few distributions that tried to make the experience more visually pleasing but it remains quite hideous.  Now I understand that visual bells and whistles can be seen as inefficient when you are focused on performance, and I would agree, however with Windows for example there is the option to tell the OS whether you want to optimise for appearance or performance, allowing for a much more pleasant visual experience.  To many Linux distributions look reminiscent of Windows 95.  GNOME is one of my most hated desktop environments for Linux as it is undoubtedly the ugliest, KDE is an improvement as is Cinnamon on Linux Mint.

Beyond these grievances the underlying problem I see with Linux is the militant, sometimes borderline religious belief that only those who "know what they are doing" should be using it.  As I said above the annoyance of having to resort to using the terminal to achieve something that in my view should be possible through the interface is often met with disdain and the retort if you don't know how to use a terminal you shouldn't be using Linux.  This kind of animosity towards users who are not of a technical background was what led many people to use Apple computers in the early days and divided people into "Mac vs PC" camps - while that was a misnomer as they moniker referred to hardware when the argument was based on software it does seem to be the case to borrow and extend this analogy that today it is very much "Mac vs PC vs Linux" with those in any of the 3 camps looking down on the other two and criticising them.

For the time being I will stick with Windows 10, there is very little tying me down to one system anymore but for what little ties me down there is even less motivation to change.  There is no real incentive for any Windows user to switch to Linux despite what many enthusiasts might try and say to convince you otherwise, if you do actually switch you'll find yourself without help very quickly.  If Linux ever wants to be a serious choice for the majority of users then these problems with the design and with the attitude of the community need to be fixed.