UbuntuCat

Moving from Windows to Linux can be a harrowing experience. One who does this may experience culture shock and then frustration at not being able to do things the way she was used to doing them. Every now and then (through Ubuntu Brainstorm, a blog post, or a Ubuntu Forums thread) I’ll read a Ubuntu user propose that we have a little balloon or pop-up tutorial on first boot to educate new users about how to use Ubuntu.

I have to say I don’t see what this would accomplish. In my experience, both advanced and average users tend to view pop-ups of any kind as an annoyance to be quickly closed. The only difference I’ve seen is that advanced users tend to read the pop-up message before closing it, and average users tend to not read the message at all.

Some definitions first. The kind of advanced user I’m talking about is the person who is not necessarily a programmer or technology professional but is definitely the person friends and family go to for help with computer problems. The kind of average user I’m talking about can’t find how to start a program if you remove or move its launcher icon.

Let me give you some examples of the behaviors of average users I’ve seen (usually at work, in various jobs).

Someone I know wanted to do some image editing, so I had her install GIMP. Now, whenever she starts GIMP, though, there’s a tip of the day that pops up, and she just gets an annoyed look on her face and closes the tip of the day. This happens every time. She doesn’t ask how to make the tip of the day not appear or read the pop-up, which tells you you can uncheck the box to make the tip not appear when you launch GIMP. She just gets annoyed and closes the tip of the day pop-up.

I, on the other hand, also get annoyed when the tip of the day appears, but I uncheck the box and make sure it never appears again.

Then, of course, there’s the Firefox We blocked a pop-up for you pop-up (or drop-down, or whatever you want to call it). I haven’t met a Firefox user yet who enjoys seeing this appear on her screen.

Just as with the GIMP tip of the day, most Firefox users I know look immediately for the red X to click and then click it to make it go away. Unfortunately, they don’t bother to click on Options to see if there’s an option to make the drop-down not appear again the next time a pop-up is blocked.

If they had, they would have seen that there’s the option Don’t show this message when pop-ups are blocked. And just as with the tip of the day, I, being a relatively advanced user do look for the option to disable the pop-up, but I, too, am annoyed that the pop-up appeared in the first place.

Lastly, all the annoying little messages that appear in the system tray or notification area. You have unused icons. Updates are available to install. Do you know how many Windows users I’ve seen just ignore the notification about updates being available for installation? Do you know how many people do not take the Welcome to Windows Tour of XP?

Pop-up balloons and messages just get in the way of people. Although there may be rare exceptions, generally users fall into one of two categories when it comes to pop-up messages: people who don’t care to read what you have to say, and people who care about the message but would rather get it another way (on their own, without it being shoved in their faces).

So my guess is that if we had this pop-up tutorial or balloon for a tutorial in Ubuntu, then veteran Ubuntu users would be annoyed by something popping up and then not read it because they know it all ready, and new Ubuntu users would be annoyed by something popping up and then not read it because they’re annoyed.

Generally speaking, I’d say if people want to learn something new, they’ll find information about it on their own. If we do want to insert a beginner tutorial into the Ubuntu process, though, what better place to put it than in the installation process? That’s why I’ve proposed this on Ubuntu Brainstorm: Add a tutorial slideshow to the installation process.

Veteran users can click Install, answer a few questions, and walk away. New users can click Install, answer a few questions, and then stay and learn something, because they have to wait for Ubuntu to install anyway.

It was actually quite a while ago that I first installed Skype. It seemed okay, but most of the people I want to talk on the phone with I can call on my cell phone, and I don’t really talk on the phone that often, anyway.

A while ago (it feels like years), my wife and I tried chatting with a former bridesmaid from our wedding who happens to live in Europe, and we had trouble connecting. Well, she’s in New Zealand now, and my wife has a new computer, and we were able to connect to her last night—see what her place looks like, meet her fiancé, show her our apartment, and talk what seemed almost like face to face.

I realize people have been using Skype video chat for years, but for me this is a new thing, and it’s cool! I dig it. It’s good to know, too, that if I or my wife is sent away on business, we can Skype video chat cost-free. Ah, the wonders of technology…

If you have followed tech news closely at all within the last ten years, you’ve probably heard the phrase year of the Linux desktop before. This is the year that Linux makes a breakthrough with home users, and suddenly Microsoft’s dominant market share comes toppling down. I believe people have been proclaiming various years as the year of the Linux desktop since as early as 1998 (possibly even earlier).

Sometimes the writers will say the current year will be the year of the Linux desktop. Sometimes they’ll be a little more conservative and say some year a few years from now will be the year of the Linux desktop. For example, if I were one of these writers, I would either write 2008 will be the year of the Linux desktop! or with the progress we’re saying right now in 2008, it’s likely that by 2011, we’ll see the year of the Linux desktop.

Did we see the year of the Linux desktop? Nope. That, at least, I think most of us Linux aficionados can agree on. But some naysayers go a step further. Through a leap in logic, they decide that the fact that none of these previous predictions have come true precludes the possibility of a future prediction coming true. In other words, the extrapolation goes something like this: Oh, come on. For years, people have been saying such-and-such year is the year of the Linux desktop, and it’s never come. It’s never going to come. Microsoft will always be on top. Just deal with it.

I would contend that we have no way of knowing whether that year will ever come or not. Just think of the fable “The boy who cried wolf.” In it, the boy tells the village that a wolf is coming. The village gets all up in a panic and then realizes the boy was lying. He cries wolf a second time, and a second time the village is in a panic and realizes the boy was lying again. The third time he cries wolf, there really is a wolf, but no one in the village believes him any more. That’s what’s happening with this whole YOTLD business. These writers who keep proclaiming that some year is the YOTLD are losing their credibility every time the year doesn’t come. But it also means that it’s possible the year might come, and no one will believe the writer who really does get it right.

So I guess it boils down to two things: 1. If you’re a writer who wants to proclaim that such-and-such year is the YOTLD, don’t even bother. Even if you’re right, no one will believe you anyway, as people have been saying that for years. 2. If you one of those people who thinks the YOTLD will never come, you have to come up with other reasons than “They’ve been saying that for years.” After all, I could say every year that I’m going to die that year, and I may be wrong most of the time, but one year I am going to be right. Whether I say it’s going to happen or not has no bearing on the actual outcome or occurrence.

I’m just beginning now to read Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point, which talks about the moment when there’s a huge sociological change (crime rates dropping, fashion trends being adopted, new technology going mainstream), and it’s made me change my mind on Linux adoption. I used to think the growth of consumer Linux would be gradual and stay gradual indefinitely, but there is a tipping point, and if we get to that point (maybe about 15%), there will be a huge flood of new users. I’m not going to speculate on what year that might be, but it clearly happened for cell phones (as Gladwell points out) in 1998, and it also happened for iPods in 2003, and Firefox in 2005. It won’t necessarily mean the end of Windows’ dominance on the home user’s computer, but it could mean a lot more third-party support for Linux—the kind that Macs currently enjoy.

Which year will be the YOTLD? No one knows. There very well still could be one, and it would probably be a year and not a decade.

Most people who know me in person (what some people refer to as “in real life”) don’t know that I have an online alter ego. Participating in a social networking site like Facebook does not mean you have an online alter ego (unless the people you are “friends” with are people you’ve never met in person). Your online alter ego is the person you are to people you have “met” online and even befriended online and had arguments with online but have never met in person.

I try, believe it or not, to make my online alter ego as much like the in-person me as possible, but somehow people who “meet” alter ego me don’t always react to me the same way in-person people do. A number of factors contribute to the difference in reactions:

• Whether we admit it or not, when we meet people in person, we judge them by how they look—and not just their facial features: we judge them by physical stature, mannerisms, gestures, tonal inflections, eye movements, and other social cues.
• Online venues tend to cut down on a lot of the small talk that happens in in-person social situations. People online have shared with me their sleeping habits, political opinions, sexual orientations, pet peeves, angers, and joys without asking me where I went to school or how long I’ve lived in the Bay Area.
• Online venues offer anonymity, which leads to more honesty… and sometimes unwarranted abuse.
• Written language allows you to put more thought into what you say. You can edit, you can proofread, and you can mull over before anyone even has an idea that you are even considering offering an opinion.

You’d think that with all those factors involved, people would think more highly of my online alter ego than they do of me. Such is not the case most of the time. I’m a friendly guy. People in person tend to like me (or at least do an awfully good job of pretending they do). Online, though, I’ve had people accuse me of being sexist, racist, homophobic, too politically correct, pedantic, lacking in a sense of humor, and enforcing draconian policies (I’m a moderator of an online forum). Oddly enough, I’ve had people accuse me of opposite things. Some people have said I’m anti-Linux. Others have said I’m a Linux fanboy. Some have said I’m too pro-Gnome. Others have said I’m biased in favor of KDE. Some have lorded over my newbieness with their “leetness” (re: elitism), and others have considered me to be very knowledgeable in the geek realm.

All of this makes me wonder if some of the people online whom I’ve grown to like and respect would actually get along with me in person. I suspect probably not. Many of the people I connect with in the Ubuntu world or even through this blog are anti-gay gun-toting right-wingers, or at least present themselves that way. Some of them drink too much beer.

Well, such is life… and online life. I’ll close with a message from my online alter ego: If you don’t read me laughing, it’s not because I lack a sense of humor; it’s because your joke wasn’t funny.

I’m an open source advocate who has been using Ubuntu for the past three years and just bought my first Linux-preinstalled computer (with Xandros instead of Ubuntu, but that’s okay), but I hate it when people hype up Linux to Windows users. I’m not talking about Linux for embedded devices or Linux for web servers. I’m talking about Linux for home users—what some call “Desktop Linux” (although the demographic seems to include laptop users as well).

Hyping up Linux is counterproductive. I’m an active member of the Ubuntu Forums and have seen too many “I’m going back to Windows” threads started by disgruntled potential migrants from Windows who were oversold on Linux by these “let’s hype up Linux” articles and blogs. Shame on the bloggers/writers. If you want to migrate people over to Linux successfully, you should be honest about the pros and cons, appreciate the good points Windows has to offer, and concede the difficulties people may face during migration.

The most important point to hammer home to potential new users is that Linux is not a drop-in replacement for Windows. Sadly, it is usually only after potential migrants get disgruntled that the Linux users say, “Yeah, Linux isn’t Windows!” Well, if you’d said that in the first place, people wouldn’t have had their unrealistic expectations shattered. They would have just stuck with Windows as they should have.

I’ve collected below a list of links to articles and blogs that overhype Linux (shame on them). The one (ironically enough) entitled “Why Linux is Better” happens to be one of few that admit Linux may not be a good choice for a number of situations, but it throws that in as a P.S. below a lot of hype at the top.

Our Linux Top 10 Reasons
Why Linux is Better
10 Reasons Why Linux Ubuntu is Better than Windows
Ubuntu - an amazing alternative to Windows
Switching From Windows To Linux
Everything About Linux
Ubuntu! An alternative to Windows and Mac
Linux Friday: Reasons To Switch To Ubuntu (Or Any Linux Distribution)
Why Use Linux?
With Vista’s View Getting Dimmer, Should You Give Linux A Chance?

You won’t have to read through all those links to get the impression that Linux (and Ubuntu in particular) is the best thing since sliced bread or vanilla ice cream. Linux for home users is a choice many people don’t know they have, and they should be made aware of that choice, but they shouldn’t have that choice shoved down their throats or made out to be the unambiguously “best” choice.

I humbly offer my own write-up to potential migrants. It was written a long time ago, but I think it still holds kernels of truth, even as Ubuntu has become more polished over the years: Is Ubuntu for You?

Don’t believe the hype. Explore your options cautiously, be skeptical of any article or blog that appears one-sided, and come to Linux with an open mind. If you follow that advice, whether you stay with Windows or end up moving to Linux, you won’t regret anything. (I’ve left out mention of Mac users here, because most of these overhype-Linux write-ups target Windows users.)