Things that should have disappeared 30 years ago are still problems in the operating system. Not least of which is the handling of locales. I cannot transfer Excel files from my Windows machine to my Linux machine because my Windows machine uses points to denote decimals (as in most companies and homes in South Africa) while Linux does a hard-enforce of the documented standard in South Africa which is a comma for decimal. This breaks my files and I am unable to perform calculations on Excel files due to this. Ridiculous, relevant and sad.
I was previously unaware of the kernel doing such things.
People are indifferent, unknowing, fearful, or just plain lazy to learn new apps. Got to get Office, QuickBooks, Quicken, Adobe, and other major apps to run on Linux.
Most of these are fringe cases nowadays, and often used in environments where the user has no control over the OS anyways. I don’t really use Office at home (for the three times per year, LibreOffice is good enough and that’s what most Windows users I know run at home anyways).
Also it’s not as easy as to just “get Office, QuickBooks, Quicken, Adobe, and other major apps to run on Linux”. The wine project is doing miraculous work already IMHO…
While I agree with you on the advantages (performance, stability, reliability, security, customization, privacy, lightweight nature, no corporate bloatware, etc) of Linux, its rate of adoption is considerably weak and consistently weak because of various reasons and causes that your article does not mention.
“Your article doesn’t mention the real reasons, which conveniently enough I won’t list either.”
While I do like Excel, its handling of values as dates is also a big issue that has hit a lot of people in the past – the format is just not very portable or exchangeable. It’s not just an issue from Excel to other solutions… my point was rather that it’s not a “Linux” issue and the way it was worded sounded like the kernel had something to do with it.
I get your point, but the guy you quoted also has a point. For a non-techy person it’s really hard to understand the boundary of the OS, so where the OS ends and Apps begin. And tbh, even to a techy person, there isn’t really a hard border there.
For example: Is the DWM part of the OS? On Windows, definitely. It’s not the kernel, but it is the OS. You cannot remove or replace it.
On Linux, maybe, maybe not. It’s definitely part of the Distro, but you can replace it. But on the other hand, on Linux you can even replace the kernel if you really want to. So maybe replaceability is not the criterium? But if it isn’t, wouldn’t that make everything that came in the distro part of the OS?
On Windows, that’s kinda the case, with e.g. Edge being an integral, non-replaceable part of the OS.
And then you get into the territory of the “Linux is only the kernel” purists, that follow Stallmans fever dreams. They might say, Linux isn’t actually an OS at all.
And at the latest once Stallman’s speech has been quoted will anyone who is not a hardcore Linux philosopher say “Screw you guys, there is no point to this”.
As someone else has said, on distributions that go for ease of use, the terminal isn’t really needed.
However, I do consider it a convenience feature even for users who are not savvy with it: You can either troubleshoot an issue by giving instructions like “Open application X, navigate to Option, open Tab, press Button, then enter Text, hit OK and repeat for each” or “copy and paste this command into your terminal”. The amount of work on both sides is likely lower plus there’s less room for error.
I’m loving the comments on the article.
I was previously unaware of the kernel doing such things.
Most of these are fringe cases nowadays, and often used in environments where the user has no control over the OS anyways. I don’t really use Office at home (for the three times per year, LibreOffice is good enough and that’s what most Windows users I know run at home anyways).
Also it’s not as easy as to just “get Office, QuickBooks, Quicken, Adobe, and other major apps to run on Linux”. The wine project is doing miraculous work already IMHO…
“Your article doesn’t mention the real reasons, which conveniently enough I won’t list either.”
Windows chance , and . depending on the language settings, so yeah so so simple and helpful :-/
While I do like Excel, its handling of values as dates is also a big issue that has hit a lot of people in the past – the format is just not very portable or exchangeable. It’s not just an issue from Excel to other solutions… my point was rather that it’s not a “Linux” issue and the way it was worded sounded like the kernel had something to do with it.
I get your point, but the guy you quoted also has a point. For a non-techy person it’s really hard to understand the boundary of the OS, so where the OS ends and Apps begin. And tbh, even to a techy person, there isn’t really a hard border there.
For example: Is the DWM part of the OS? On Windows, definitely. It’s not the kernel, but it is the OS. You cannot remove or replace it.
On Linux, maybe, maybe not. It’s definitely part of the Distro, but you can replace it. But on the other hand, on Linux you can even replace the kernel if you really want to. So maybe replaceability is not the criterium? But if it isn’t, wouldn’t that make everything that came in the distro part of the OS?
On Windows, that’s kinda the case, with e.g. Edge being an integral, non-replaceable part of the OS.
And then you get into the territory of the “Linux is only the kernel” purists, that follow Stallmans fever dreams. They might say, Linux isn’t actually an OS at all.
And at the latest once Stallman’s speech has been quoted will anyone who is not a hardcore Linux philosopher say “Screw you guys, there is no point to this”.
The reasons aren’t worth listing because they’re all known but here we go
You need to use linux shell to get anything done.
There, that’s the reason.
Linux will never be popular until you can do everything, and I mean, everything without entering a single command in a terminal.
As someone else has said, on distributions that go for ease of use, the terminal isn’t really needed.
However, I do consider it a convenience feature even for users who are not savvy with it: You can either troubleshoot an issue by giving instructions like “Open application X, navigate to Option, open Tab, press Button, then enter Text, hit OK and repeat for each” or “copy and paste this command into your terminal”. The amount of work on both sides is likely lower plus there’s less room for error.