Quote:
Originally Posted by Rathji
My mom runs the latest version of Ubuntu. I installed it for her, but I only used default settings so I basically just hit enter over and over. She called me a week afterwards about why her Youtube wouldn't work, I told her to google "installing flash on Ubuntu" and explained how to open the terminal. She had no problems.
You can't get much lower on the computer/tech skill ladder than my mom. She called me one day because her usb flash drive wouldn't work, and 30 mins of pulling my hair out later I find out it is because she has stuck it into the RJ-45 slot instead of the USB slot.
As long as people have your attitude, you are right, Linux is not an option. The reality is though, it actually is.
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Well, even if someone found out about it on their own, the install/setup would probably be enough to scare the average user off - even if in reality it doesn't have to be all that complicated. Certain wireless and print drivers can be a massive pain in Linux still and that's enough to be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
The biggest hurdle, IMO, is there's no company you can point to and say "They're taking care of the development and will support you if you run into any trouble" in the same way you can with Windows/OSX. Sure you could probably make an argument for a company like Canonical to take on that type of role for the Ubuntu distro but its really not the same when you come right down to it. If nothing else, they simply don't have the name recognition and trust that comes with it of Microsoft or Apple. This frightens a lot of people and scares off anyone that doesn't consider using google to try to solve their own tech issues.
If Dell, for example, were to really get behind it and start pushing machines pre-installed and pre-configured with Linux and were to provide a decent level of consumer support with it to help people migrating to a new OS... it might get to the point of being a viable alternative in a few years.