Fitting the battle of life

I read, as those who know me will no doubt know, the Guardian as my paper (well, actually, being a broke student, website) of choice, and especially make sure to catch the Technology supplement on a Thursday, simply because techy stuff is a minor passion of mine. I’ve noticed over the past year or so (perhaps since I started actively looking) more and more mentions of Linux, and particularly Ubuntu. So it came as no great surprise to find this post by Kevin Anderson today.

He has been using Ubuntu for six months, and comes to the conclusion that it is “ready for advanced computer users, but not most mainstream users”, for example his parents. However, not only has he not asked his parents to try it, but the issues he brings up as ‘cons’ include mainly driver issues. One comment from an American describes a large group of Ubuntu users whose average age is 74 all humming along quite nicely, and (from my own experience) my mother is quite happy using Ubuntu – and I certainly wouldn’t call her an advanced computer user. After several comments, (including my own!), the author conceded: “I guess, that’s not much different now with a Windows machine”. Victory is ours!

I do admit that the issues he had with his own machine are genuine issues with certain video/audio drivers, but with the likes of Dell offering pre-installed issues in the mainstream market, the ‘average’ computer user simply isn’t going to run into the same difficulties. And, of course, it’s well known that Windows has driver issues, worse than GNU/Linux does. But I won’t turn this into a MS-bashing post.

The simple fact is, while all publicity is good publicity, articles such as this slightly skew the perspective an ‘average’ user has of Ubuntu. It would have been a very different article had the author taken a new Ubuntu Dell for a ride, instead of installing it on his own, older system. Articles like this do highlight the benefits of Ubuntu (and there is indeed a list of praise-worthy points), but at the same time aren’t entirely constructive. While the author added an update to the main article with a link to various features coming in Hardy, he didn’t update it to clarify his remarks about the ‘your parents’ test, which many people would miss in the comments.

Rant over.