@Aaron said:
If everything else about Ubuntu is different from Microsoft/Windows, what would compel you to think that you should be able to use the same support strategy? You are not Bill Gates. You don't have the advertising budget to spread major awareness of your product. You don't have any sort of reputation backing you up. You don't have an intuitive enough product to skimp on support. You certainly don't have the market share to reasonably expect that Joe the Plumber's brother or son is going to know anything about a problem or be able to fix it.
IMHO Windows isn't any more intuitive then modern consumer oriented linux distributions. I've been using gentoo-linux as my main desktop OS for a few years now and i've never really used Windows Vista. Sometimes I have to help someone with there Vista PC, and I have to look for some setting that they've moved since windows XP. That isn't too much of a problem though, you can usually find what you're looking for in a minute or so.
The thing is, it isn't much different from, for example, Ubuntu. I've never used it, and I've never even seen the GUI-configuration-tools that they use, but when I have to I can usually find what i'm looking for pretty quickly.
In my opinion, the switch from Windows XP to Windows Vista isn't much bigger then from Windows XP to Ubuntu. You can basically do the same stuff, it's just that everything is shuffled around a bit. The switch from IE6 to IE7 is just as big as the jump from IE6 to Firefox, and the jump from office 2003 to 2007 isn't much bigger then the jump to Openoffice.
Ofcourse, your points about marketing and market share still stand.
@Aaron said:
Maybe, some day, if you manage to gain even a 10% market share, you might be able to act more like Microsoft. But in order to get there, you really need to get your foot in the door, and that means making sure that every last idiot who was good-hearted enough to guinea-pig your shitty OS feels completely comfortable.
I agree with you, and others, that if linux really want to get mainstream it has to get invest in marketing and support. But I think it's unfair to judge a product on it's popularity.
Ubuntu isn't any more 'shitty' or 'a defective product' than Windows is. It's different. If the woman from the article doesn't want to learn how to use it, that's fine. It is, however, egocentrical to conclude Ubuntu is defective just because SHE doesn't want to, or can't, use it.
Operating systems should be transparant to the user, it's just that they aren't.Present-day computer users have to know what OS they are running. There are lots of obvious differences between Vista and XP, and some software doesn't work on one of those versions. Knowing your operating system is basic knowledge for every computer user, even though it should be. And if you order a computer without windows installed, that is your resposibility. The woman from the story made a mistake, even though it could, and maybe even should, have been caught by dell, but it IS her fault. No biggie, everyone makes mistakes. The problem could have been solved by simply contacting dell. TRWTF is that this woman has the problem solving skills of a 3 year old, or the dell support staff is totally incapable. (Dell should have explained to her that she probably wants to have Windows, and that they could install it for $$$)