| I totally concur. I recently tried an experiment - could my girlfriend use the Wubi installer and get Ubuntu going without any boyfriend tech-support? Results: The installer is far from perfect, but after a few tries and a few seemingly random glitches it repartitioned and installed flawlessly. She was able to boot into Oneric no problem. Once she was there, she liked everything. Thought it looked really "zoomy" and way better than her experience with XP. Found the Software Center, and thought it was a great idea. Then, she tried to download some software. At that point she got some confusing non-human-readable errors. Hmmm, I guess she'll try another one. No luck. Finally she turns to me, and I realize she's not connected to Wifi. I try to connect, and it auto-promts me to install the Wifi drivers. "Awesome," I thought, maybe she didn't need my help after all! Then, upon attempting the install it quits with a hilariously unreadable error that I wish I could remember at the moment. I realize that it's trying to download the Wifi drivers when there's no connection. To put it bluntly, my girlfriend has no idea what an ethernet cable is. To expect her to figure out she needs one and further go buy one is far too ambitious for a distribution that claims it's for "everyone". I understand the license implication for restricted drivers, but this in fact proves the point that Linux may never in fact be for "everyone". (And don't get me wrong, I'm an Arch fanatic!) To be brief, Ubuntu is pleasing UI but terrible UX for anyone not willing to troubleshoot problems on their own. |