I was recently reading this artcle [lockergnome.org] and this article really annoyed me as I am a rather large supporter or open source, free software, and of course Linux. Linux is still of course behind Windows and OS X, but over the past couple years, it has truly become a viable operating system for the desktop and even the laptop.

My main complaint about this is that it's filled with all these half-truths.

It first starts off complaining about application compatibility with Linux. The truth of the matter is that many applications have a very good open-source alternative. And if you ABSOLUTELY need to run a Windows-only piece of software, wine does a decent job of running most pieces of software. Yes, there are some truths in compatibility problems, but the author of this article over-exaggerates the problems to the point where he makes it sound like EVERY piece of software can't be run under wine. I would've really chewed him a new hole if he complained about Microsoft Office not working on wine with OpenOffice gaining stock value in my eyes.

The second thing he complains about is the command line. Yes, Linux is still heavily based on the command line, but at the same time, more and more tasks can be easily done without even opening a terminal. GUIs and point and click functionality has been increasing in Linux distros to make configuration tasks simpler for the novice user to understand and use, and for the more advanced user, the terminal actions aren't removed, just hidden underneath the surface.

He talks about hardware support and lack of official vendor Linux drivers. Hello? Linux has such a great community that many produce great drivers for multitudes of old and new hardware that may very well end up being better than anything the companies could produce themselves. I myself have had very few hardware problems on any of my computers running Linux, most of the time, all hardware was found and installed just fine under Linux.

DRM. One word that pisses off many upon many a tech user. Yes, sometimes Linux has problems reading DRM'ed content, but so do Windows and even OS X. Problems with DRM are the root of an inherent flaw associated with DRM, and one of several reasons why I hate DRM. Saying Linux doesn't work with DRM is like saying Windows Vista doesn't work with my Pentium 2 processor, its absurd because DRM may not work period, with ANY operating system.

He complains about the saying "Ubuntu just works". I can partially agree with him on this one as Ubuntu may or may not work out of the box. But I will say that he again overexaggerated his point. With the exception of my latest desktop, EVERY computer I've tried to install Ubuntu on has worked right out of the box, with the only thing needing to be done is to install the official nVidia drivers which just took a couple mouse clicks. In fact, Ubuntu recognized all my hardware, whereas Windows XP and Vista needed at least a half-dozen drivers to be installed separately. I was even able to get Ubuntu running on my old Dell Inspiron 4000, wireless and all. My latest desktop does show that sometimes there are hiccups, but at the same time, all problems I had with it were solved with Ubuntu 8.04.

Making the switch to Linux is not something that one can expect to do in an hour, but it does not take months to set up either. In maybe a couple of days, I think even a new user could learn his way around. I would reccommend it to anyone, but at the same time, pushing it on someone is not the best way to spread Linux. If you do want to help someone switch to Linux, make sure you help them as best you can, but also let them do things on their own, that's how people learn, from hands on learning and experimenting.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not trying to bash Microsoft or any other operating system for that matter, I just think that articles that spread these half-truths aren't helping anyone or anything.

Tags: opensource, linux, ubuntu