Ubuntu Linux

Last week when I was driving home, I decided I should switch from Windows XP to Linux, Ubuntu Linux to be precise. Don't get me wrong, I don't mean installing it on an old machine or using a dual boot installation together with Windows. I mean switching actually for real!
Why? My computer was ready for a complete cleanup and reinstallation anyway. Windows Explorer kept crashing, leftovers from deinstalled programs messed up the system. It didn't feel right like it used to. It occurred to me that I had no excuse to keep using Windows anymore. Since I left OS/2 nine years ago, I always had some special purpose Windows-only software to keep me from switching to Linux. But I realized that there is nothing left. And if I get in real trouble, there is always my company laptop to help me out.

Ten years ago, Linux had a bad reputation when it comes to usability. This reputation is changing. More and more people are saying Linux isn't that hard to learn. I tried Linux on old machines several times. I never found anything easy about it.
Also, I have always been a little bit annoyed by Linux evangelist's claims of Linux being a better system. For them perhaps it is a better system. They can't imagine how Windows is so popular and so many people still chose MSIE over Firefox. With the best intentions they are improving their software usability targeting a broader audience. But with their poor marketing skills I think they are unlikely to reach them.

The recent promotion of Ubuntu Linux feels a little bit different though. Their slogan “Linux for human beings” tells us that usability is their primary focus, not just an afterthought. Are they succeeding?

In some ways they are, in some ways they're not. I found that there are roughly two kinds of software components in Linux. One kind is the obvious components everybody needs. These are surprisingly easy to install and use as long as you stick with the main stream functionalities. The other kind is the special features and specific user preferences they forgot about. These are hard to find, need editing of difficult text files or require manual installation of additional components. For example, installing OpenOffice and Firefox is easy, but getting the Java plugin to run in Firefox or getting the RSS reader to launch on system startup requires a lot of searching and reading (or they hid the easy functionality really well).
And there is nothing in between. Either it is very easy or it is very hard.

For me as a technical guy, it all feels like a large puzzle where you can put the pieces in the right place and still decide what the resulting picture should look like. For me, Linux brings the fun back in using my computer at home. I never used my computer as much as last week.

For a broader audience, I'm not so sure. They're doing a good job but they have a long way to go.

The advantage of community software is that they welcome you to help improve the system yourself. I'll think about this and see what I can do. As for now, I still have a lot to learn about the system.