Poll : Is LINUX too complicated ?

Sometimes. (:

I picked "other" because it is not difficult to use, but IMHO, it is difficult to administer correctly. My wife has no problems using it on a day to day basis provided I'm the one keeping it up. But if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, she'd be hard pressed to deal with any of the little issues that occasionally come up (like fixing the mythtv login to the mysql database after upgrading mythtv or mysql).

Absolutely not!!! It is MUCH easier to use than WinD0$, especially if you choose an easy-to-use distro like Ubuntu. And 4pp13 (decided to replace letters in the company's name with two unlucky numbers), IMHO, is too totalitarian over the user experience.

When did 4 become unlucky?
Anyway, i find Debian easier then Ubuntu but i guess thats just me.

Primarily a Jewish thing, since 4 is unlucky in the many ELS codes within the Bible.

I voted other: Linux is inherently more complicated because the user can do so much more than with windoze. Unfortunately, freedom comes with choices, and choices tend to make things complicated. It's like the difference between describing a line that is tangent to a circle using simple geometry or calculus. Calculus does a much better job of describing the relationship, but the description using geometry is simpler.

I don't understand this question, I think it is too complicated....


Linux has become rather complex, I mean think of the number of lines of code now, compared to previous versions of Linux. Maybe a little fat too, then again thats why you can always slim down the kernel by not compiling things you don't need. Thank Bob that Linux is modular.


Is using Linux complicated? Perhaps. Then again to some people, thinking also causes headaches and the best way to alleviate the pain is to stop thinking. So no, Linux is no more complex to use than Windows.

I don't have much to criticize Ubuntu. It is a very good way of introducing new users to Linux, but its approach of going through great lengths of hiding the internals of Linux from the user does more harm than good, in my opinion. I will never understand Ubuntu's approach of hiding root/su to the user, and all but 99.9% of the time hiding the CLI from the user.

I have not really ventured away from Slackware, but I do have a curiosity of playing with Debian, and all other major distros as far as I'm concerned, owe a lot to the two great elders, Debian and Slackware.

Documentation has to be first understood.
Yes, no, and other.

If my 10 yr old can handle debian, its not complicated.

Does s/he know how to use the CLI? If so, then that's pretty cool!

Personally I don't find any Linux distro to be all that complicated. Sure, sometimes when something doesn't work (like wireless on a desktop computer), it can be a bit of a PITA, but other than that I haven't had many troubles.

If you ask me, "complexity" is relative. To most people, when they don't understand something, even if the concept is technically simple, they'll deem it as "complex". Most people learn to do something one way and then can't find it in themselves to learn some other way, so they'll say "it's too hard" or "I can't do this", when they really mean "I don't want to do this, because I only know how to do things this way, and this other way is too strange and foreign to me".

I'm going to doubt that.

Yeah, I'm 17, and have been studying the Linux CLI for three years, while having studied DOS since I was three years old! I know that the Linux CLI is much more powerful. I know darn well how to do several things:

Search the drive for files using the terminal (very fast indeed):
Install software (I always use the CLI for this):
Upgrade the whole distribution using the CLI (Note: You will have to type the first command in the string at least 10 times, using different APT lines):
Build software from source:
Compile the Linux kernel from source:
In DOS and M$ Ickdows, none of these things are possible. You can't search for files in WinD0$ without the GUI, as there is no equivalent to the grep command. You can't install software without using the GUI, as most apps have very complicated graphical installers. And source code is NOT available for most WinD0$ apps. So the Linux CLI is even more powerful than the WinD0$ GUI hands down. All because of a single m0n0p011st1c c0rp0r4t10n.

@Kenny_strawn: I was not talking about you.

Yes, I saw, and wanted to say I'm not surprised that a 10-year-old kid knows the CLI, as it was pretty easy for me.