Hi

If a new user, say a person who doesnt know a lot about computers are using linux for the first time. When he opens his browser and comes across a video which is in flash he wont be able to play this video because he doesnt have macromedia flash installed. Is this really user-friendly? Sure linux is user-friendly on the desktop, but what this situation? He doesnt really want to spend a lot of time just to get a video to work and the automatic installation of the plugin fails.

Another example is if for example this user is installed an RPM package which requests many other packages and then gets dependencies after dependencies (sometimes called "dependency-hell") and doesnt understand anything at all and he doesnt want to spend time on installing much to get something to work. Still user-friendly?

Sure its easy for geeks to install. but if linux is suppose to reach out to windows users, these things shouldnt happen should they? I like linux and im using linux, but i these kind of situations should be fixed.

It wasnt cool posting this, but i feel like we should bring it up.

Do you think linux still really is user-friendly and im not talking about the desktop..

It depends. For your two examples:

Flash installation--having recently done this on both a Linux machine and a Windows machine, I'd say they were equally unfriendly. In both cases, the Flash plug-in creates a link to a plug-in download. In both cases, the plug-in was downloaded, and had to be manually installed. This really isn't the fault of either Windows or Linux, but rather web site designers's fault for using Macromedia Flash.

For "dependency hell", this is something where some versions of Linux are excellent and some versions of Linux are horrible. The best is Debian Stable.

Again? This subject seems to be raised weekly, if not more often.

Your flash example, surely thats a case of the system not being set up correctly in the first place rather than a lack of user friendliness?

Second example, thats been addressed. Now there are package managers that do dependancy tracking and resolution. Read your distributions documentation for more details.

About only geeks being able to install Linux: remember the average user doesn't install Windows so thats irrelevant.

To answer the overall question. Yes Linux is user friendly

It's just picky about who it's friends are.

Even that's not applicable anymore.

Of course it may require a knowledgeable user to do the initial setup, but my brother, if sat in front of gnome with firefox and openoffice probably wouldn't realise he wasn't using Windows

My mother is using it and she has trouble understanding what is a file and a directory.
She just click on the gaim or firefox button and it works (flash included).

For anyone who doesn't have a 'Windows Mentality', they love Linux. I've seen plenty of people with next-to-no computer knowledge sit down in front of a Ubuntu box and run with it just fine. I've even heard some call it "faster" and "less crashy" (their way of saying 'stable', I suppose).

That being said, the big question is if Linux should strive to be like Windows. I'm not one of those who think this is a war or that Linux is the be-all and end-all to operating system arguments. Instead, I see Linux as an operating system that works better for me than Windows does. Windows doesn't do what I need, Linux does.

In reality, I see very little likelihood of Linux surpassing Windows use even in the next decade, and that's a long time in the computer industry. Linux is here to stay, for sure, but Windows just has a stranglehold on the everyday home user.

Saying we should be more like Windows is like saying "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em." That's completely the wrong attitude: what's made Linux what it is is that it works better.

there are hundreds of distros, most of which are less than user friendly.but there are many that are. we get new members here all the time who chose an inappropriate distribution for a new user, then piss and moan that linux isn't user friendly. in my head i'm thinking "you just jumped in the deep end of the pool and you don't even know how to swim yet, go get linspire or mandriva and learn to swim, in a couple of years come back to ' you're on your own, pal(tm) linux ' when you understand the lay of the land"

if a user thinks that an entirely different operating system should some how work exactly like windows, and that clicking a mouse a few times or having to read a man page is too much effort, then they should really just stay on windows.

Eww, linspire. Nah, I suppose it works really well for new users. But let's not forget Ubuntu... I think it is by far the most user-friendly distro for the home user.

I used debian 3.1 before, but since the GNOME and KDE desktop environments are so out-dated i tried ubuntu which comes with the newest version of GNOME and KDE. I really dont wanna have to upgrade GNOME and/or KDE because i think thats kind of a big job and takes lots of time, at least when i havent done it before.

Now that you mention Ubuntu, I think this is what the OP is using??
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...d.php?t=468232

...and yes, Linux is user friendly! There's no whines from my flat mates when I lend them my laptop.

EDIT. I have to agree with you hondo, I got annoyed with the outdated KDE on Debian stable. Maybe you should dual boot so you can test all the newer stuff on a unstable system?

Im not saying that windows should be like linux. These are two different operating systems. It would be nice if i didnt have to do work just to watch a movie or spend an hour on installing a development environment.

So, do you really want to do work just to get a program or some drivers installed ? What about a device that is not compatible with linux, are you suppose to use hours to just try to get it to work? Wouldnt it be nice with a little time and user-friendly way to do things?

What would be nice is if you have desktop environments that were updated on the system youre actually using. Not having to go to the other system to just "ah this is nice" and then have to go back again to your regular linux distro. I would also like to use xgl you know, but then i think you at least have to have the latest desktop environment and again that would be kind of your whole-evening and next-day kind of thing i guess.

I would without a doubt use debian 3.1 sarge if it came with updated desktop environments. I did kind of love it when i used it, but there like doing work to just get a simple thing working, that sucks. Sure i can do work, no problem, but not all the time im going to do/get or watch something.

"So, do you really want to do work just to get a program or some drivers installed ?"

well first off, i don't consider a few mouse clicks or incantations at the command line "work".

"What about a device that is not compatible with linux, are you suppose to use hours to just try to get it to work?"

no, you recognize in the first 10 minutes that it is not compatible and move on with your life.