What is a simple user? The article was too long for me...
I have put my mother on Ubuntu and it works great. Most things are a lot easier easy than with Windows, and most importantly, security updates take care of themselves, too. Under windows it is just big mess. Usually applications come with their own updater software, which is ugly and spyware-ish by itself, and also very unreliable.
Right now my grandfather is using Ubuntu with iGoogle. All he does is go and look at his stocks and the news, but it works really well for him for that. Every now and then he googles something. He uses a trackball because we couldn't afford a big touchscreen and mice are extremely hard to use once you get beyond a certain age (which my experience shows to be curved around 70).
In other words -- my 90 year old grandfather is successfully using the internet through a dynamic home page and a command prompt.
The unix philosophy is that there are users, and there are sysadmins, and the sysadmins take care of the users' computers. The Windows philosophy, on the other hand, is basically that every user should be a half-competent sysadmin in their own right.
Windows has never been, is not, and never will be, for "simple users." It is for power-users, and those with power-users in their support networks. Unix was designed for "simple users" from day one, but under the simple rule that there be someone else around whose only task is to take care of the system.
I've always wondered why computer repair shops don't offer a service where they continue on as root of any repaired computers....
They should, but there isn't a platform for them to do so. I've thought a lot about this problem but would prefer not to discuss it in public forums. So anyone that would like to discuss, please email me.
True enough. What I meant to say is why does the group of elitist assholes that is the majority of linux backers care to have their OS accepted by people they obviously have little regard for?
I'm not specifically saying that, (I was just using the parent comment's words) but let's be honest: the linux community as a whole is not exactly welcoming to the non-power user.
There's really nothing wrong with this. That's my point. Why does the community get all out of shape about being ready for the "average user"? Linux wasn't built for them, it isn't used by them, and it won't ever be good enough compared to OS'es that focus exclusively on them - i.e. Mac and windows.
>it won't ever be good enough compared to OS'es that focus exclusively on them
I disagree. In the long term, open source is going to win. Maybe it won't be in three years, but in ten years I expect Ubuntu/Linux to be solidly better for every single user. The unlimited time of smart people working for free eventually adds up to something really amazing.
I can't see that happening for the same reason that enterprise software will never die: people equate quality with cost, rightly or wrongly.
OSX is essentially BSD++ with a massive price tag associated with it. You could put the exact same OS out as open source and it would remain in the realm of the power-user/hobbyist.
Perhaps it won't happen in ten years. But I'd be willing to wager that it will happen in 75 years. In the real long term, for products like desktop environments that aren't niche products, open source can't lose.
I have put my mother on Ubuntu and it works great. Most things are a lot easier easy than with Windows, and most importantly, security updates take care of themselves, too. Under windows it is just big mess. Usually applications come with their own updater software, which is ugly and spyware-ish by itself, and also very unreliable.