Timothy Hoogland

My brother Jeff Hoogland is a well known blogger in the Linux communities and recently published a very sarcastic article entitled “Why Ubuntu is harder than Windows“. I do think that he had some valid arguments when it comes to the bundled software. However I will add that most of the opensource software that my brother likes Ubuntu bundling on the OS CD is available for FREE (like OpenOffice.org) online. If they have a connection to download a Ubuntu ISO why can’t they download a 200MB file to get OpenOffice or other programs? The main problem is that he completely misses the other crippling issues that are preventing Ubuntu from going mainstream. I myself have kept up with Ubuntu and have used it on many of my PC’s over the years. It is a nice OS but there are still issues that need to be fixed.

64-Bit OS Support:

Now as we all know computers are now coming with 64-bit capable CPU’s and with more than 4GB of ram. The latest version of Ubuntu has the PAE kernel automatically installed if it detects more than 3GB of ram. This is fine but what about applications that need the extra processing power and headroom that a TRUE 64-bit OS offers? Well you can go and download the 64-bit version of Ubuntu and install it but good luck getting any 3rd party software installed easily (or even at all). The problem is that software (like flash, adobe air, drivers, and many other software) is mainly programmed for the 32-bit version of Ubuntu because that is what the majority of users install and use. I have had first hand experience with this issue.

I installed the 64-bit version of Ubuntu Desktop 10.04. I proceeded to install flash-player and was met with nothing but errors. After a bit of googling I found a way to install it. Great! There is 30 minutes of tinkering to get something working that is easy to install in Windows or 32-bit Ubuntu. Now I use TweetDeck on a daily basis to keep up with my social networks. TweetDeck uses Adobe’s Air platform. Again a simple process that should be a “click this button” installation turned into a 2 hour process that just wouldn’t work. So I call up my brother and tell him about this problem and he tells me that I shouldn’t use the 64-bit version of Ubuntu and to go to 32-bit. Lo and behold after changing over to 32-bit everything  started working properly. This is fine and dandy but it is 2010. We use 64-bit operating systems here. In contrast the only 64-bit version of Windows that was downright terrible was the 64-bit version of Windows XP as it was basically a re-badged version of Windows Server 2003 64-bit. As for 64-bit Vista and 7 I have had no issues that are 64-bit related and they are well supported by hardware and software makers.

802.11x WiFi/Wireless:

In my brothers article he says things like

If you have one of the millions of pieces of hardware that is supported on the Linux platform then 99 times out of 100 once you attach it to your computer it still start functioning right away. What about that hundredth time? Ubuntu will offer to automatically download and install any closed source drivers the hardware needs to function.

Now while this is true with hardware like graphics cards and….well that’s about it. Wait? What closed source drivers is he talking about? It can’t be wireless or bluetooth (ask him about the cheap wireless cards). I cannot tell you how many laptops I have installed Ubuntu on and not had working wireless out of the box (if you have an Intel Wireless card yours will probably work). Now almost every single laptop on the market that is sold today comes with some form of integrated 802.11x wireless card built into it. They work perfectly on Windows because they were designed to work with Windows. Now some linux developers have made a package called “NDIS Wrapper” to try and fix this issue. NDIS Wrapper is a program that allows the use of MOST Windows wireless drivers to be used with Ubuntu, almost all with limited functionality (who needs SSID scanning anyways? real men manually enter their SSID.). The only problem with that is the setup process that is involved. Just have a look here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper. I have used this before and it’s a 50/50 chance of it working and if you ask in the Ubuntu forums for help you will most likely not get anything more than rants from linux fanatics about how “it’s the hardware manufacturer’s fault”. Also if your wireless card is controlled by a “FN + F1-12″ combination you will have even more issues. You might even have to reinstall Windows to turn the wireless on with the manufacturers software and hope that it stays on when you are back in Ubuntu.

Bluetooth:

Let me put it simply. If you have integrated bluetooth that can be turned off and on with a “FN +F1-12″ keycombination there is a 1 in 10 chance that it will work in Ubuntu. The problem here is that the linux kernel doesn’t have support for the software that turns the bluetooth radio on and off (as with Wifi). Solution? If you really want bluetooth go buy another bluetooth adapter that plugs into the USB port. Those usually work most of the time.

Updating the Operating System:

In my brothers article he talks about how Windows basically forces users to install updates. What he completely misses is that the user is the one who selected the option to install updates when they setup the operating system. You can also change the update setting by going to the Control Panel and going to Windows Updates. Once in there you can change it to never check for updates, notify me of updates, download but don’t install updates, or automatically install updates (default). This isn’t a vaild argument against Windows just because he is annoyed with something that he selected and is too lazy (or doesn’t know how) to change. He also goes on to talk about how Windows goes through 1-2 reboot cycles to install updates. This is because Windows cannot update files while they are in use. This updating process is new to Vista and 7. Microsoft did it this way because it is the most stable way to update the operating system. Ubuntu on the other hand will basically force the update in and not check to see if it broke anything. There have been multiple times (from my experience and my brothers) where Ubuntu will not even boot after installing updates because the updates broke something. Don’t believe me? Check this out for proof: “ubuntu not booting after update” Google search. Usually this is caused by a kernel update and involves using the old kernel to boot and undo the kernel update. Not a big deal right? Well unless that kernel update patched a major security hole.

Power Management:

This is another that has plagued mobile Ubuntu users for years. Try going into Standby (S1 or S3) or hibernation. On their 10.04 release it worked fine on my laptop (Gateway P-78) but only on the 32-bit version. On most other laptops it just simply doesn’t work. There is no simple fix for this as there are too many manufacturers to support out of the box. But you can get it working most of the time if you have about 6 hours of time to dedicate to trying this and that to get it to work.

Gaming:

I wanted to put a long “LOL” here but I am trying to keep it professional. There are ways to get games to “run” on linux and I use the word “run” very loosely. When I say “run” games I mean it doesn’t matter if you have a fully loaded top-of-the-line computer it will still not run games smoothly or with detail. The support just isn’t there because 90% of mainstream games use Microsoft’s DirectX. There isn’t any easy or efficent way to emulate or port DirectX over to linux. This is one of the main reasons my desktop will never have linux on it as I use it for gaming and multimedia creation (also not easy to do on linux, ooh boy here come the Blender guys with the pitchforks). Bottom line is that if you want to play games or want to do multimedia ceation use Windows.

Closing:

It may seem that I really hate Ubuntu but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I believe that Ubuntu is a nice operating system but is a little rough around the edges and lacks necessary system features that just work on Windows. This combined with the “elitist” attitude of the linux community it makes the operating system pretty un-approachable to the average Joe. If they could get these issues worked out then it would truly be a marketable operating system for everyone. But for now Windows is going to be the standard for a while. And Jeff it’s not that Ubuntu is “too hard to use” and people aren’t giving it a chance. It is that most people value their time and don’t want to be fighting with their OS to do things the their current OS just does (whether 3rd party software is involved or not).