Irfan’s Corner on the Web On Mac, Linux, Grid, Virtualization and Software Technology

Three Things the Linux community doesn’t get? I think just 2

Today morning I came across this article this article on ZDnet, if I had read it 2 years ago, I would not have agreed with any of the points, now I agree with at least 2 points!.

1. The Mac effect

For a geek, having choices is all that matters. I love the fact that there are 100s of Linux distributions, and I'm eager to recommend Linux distributions to other people, however everytime I come to recommending a specific Linux distribution to a friend, they have always some specific requirements. For example recently a friend of mine wanted a good bibliographic software to work with OpenOffice, to my knowledge there isn't one which I would recommend esp. since he was used to commercial software like Biblioscape. Then he had difficulties installing Maple 12 in his Ubuntu 8.04 (It turned out that the company supported only Ubuntu 7!). Further along, he could not run a specific mathematical research software because the developer had released binaries for redhat 9 only!.

Fed up with all this, he got a Mac, and the strength of the Mac is that it marries a strong GUI with a Unix based subsystem. Now I could recommend excellent referencing software such as EndNote, Bookends or Papers. Maple has a release the Mac, which is not tied to a specific version of OSX. The mathematical research software also had a DMG which was created for PowerPC macs, however he had no problems running it thorugh Rosetta (built-in hypervisor for PowerPC). Everything fell into place for him when he switched to a Mac.

So for Linux to survive in the user's desktops, I think more concerted efforts should be made by the Linux community to standardize cross-distribution package formats, enabling the universal installation of binaries and simplify software development for Linux. Both these things will help commercial companies develop software for Linux and then in future, hopefully, I can recommend the Bookends Linux release as well.

2. Who provides free tech support?

I'm always eager to help friends out with their Linux problems, and I used to think that linux forums such as LinuxQuestions.org are the ultimate free tech support. However because there are 100s of distributions tech support for Linux is becoming increasingly fragmented. Often the reply to a question on the a forum is: "Just install this and this package, type yum PACKAGENAME" or someone else says "just type apt-get install PACKAGEName". The old world where people would recommend source packages which would work in any distribution is gone it seams.

3. Linux users "unfriendly" to NooBs?

Largely I would say this was true a few years ago, however with the penetration of Ubuntu and an increasing number of non-technical users using Linux, this problem has largely faded.