Linux Again!
One of my older posts discussing the possibility of SolidWorks being moved to Mac or Linux turns out to be one of the more popular ones for people to comment on. It certainly has had the longest life of any of my posts, in terms of new comments rolling in.
What is it about Linux that makes intelligent people act insane? I can understand part of it. You (ok, I) really want Linux to be the next big thing in Operating Systems. There is something very attractive about being able to download a piece of free software from the internet (say the Ubuntu distro), install it on your computer and say GOODBYE to Microsoft. I mean, that really is liberating. Linux devotees have tried hard to make it a viable system by writing bunches of free software to replace functionality otherwise foisted on users by Microsoft. I’m enough of an independent spirit/rebel/anti-corporate type to really appreciate breaking away from “the man” and still having useful software to work with.
Unfortunately I’m also a pragmatist. I have tried several times to like Linux. I have 2 distros in boxes with the CDs and documentation sitting on the shelf – uninstalled. I have Ubuntu loaded and functional on one computer. I just can’t warm up to it. Every time I start using it and need to use a “terminal” (text entry command prompt) to do something I flash back to HP UX days and trying for half an hour to figure out how to “mount the floppy”. In Ubuntu I tried for an hour to get an nVidia video driver installed with no success. Previous distros (SuSE, Red Hat) have been nightmarish with 6 CDs to install requiring a special format (or lack of format) on the drive before it would work, and I gave up on those early on (this was a few years back).
Now of course some Linux expert is going to comment that I just missed a small detail, and everything will work fine. It’s probably true. Still, on the same box where I installed Ubuntu, I also installed a beta of Vista and had far less trouble getting it to run and apply video drivers. Say what you want, this is a common experience, and is the reason why Linux is going no where on the desktop. You need to be a linux/unix hobyist to run it. This is not an OS for casual computer users, or people who are engineers or designers first, and computer geeks second. Microsoft OS can be installed and run on just about anything. Linux is fussy, and drivers are limited. OSX is limited intentionally to proprietary hardware. Neither one of those business cases is going to win out over Microsoft’s methods. It has to be easy to install, run and a normal computer user should be able to maintain it (install drivers) easily.
Much of the pro-Linux commentary has come from the academic world, where things are, well, academic. Everything is a research project. In engineering industry, that obviously won’t cut it. Say all the bad things you want about the Microsoft company and the OS products, and they are probably all true, but there are no available Operating System options which match its usability and maintainability by common users.