How to make Linux 90% less annoying!

So all the fucking time I hear, read, or smell about how great Linux is and how everyone not using it is an idiot, how Microsoft is evil, Apple is eviler, and the FOSS movement will save your soul...

It's bullshit.

Not even getting into the whole retail vs. free debate, or even a debate about OS stability, or even techinical mertit I would like to say 90% of the fucking annoyence I've had with working on Linux system is this...

There is no fucking installer format

If you're a windows user and have only ever used Windows you might not know what I mean, an EXE file you download off a website to install that new flashy game (which is likely full of spyware) is an installer.

Linux doesn't have that, you look around the web searching for a program to suit a need, find something that might suit and ... then you have to fuck around with downloading source files and command lines... or opening up an application to search an online repository of programs and then finding it.

I tell you right now, it might get easier to use, it might even just as good as installers, but you know what? People know how to install shit, even if they don't know what installing is (I use to work in IT retail, I had people call it everything from copying to downloading to uploading).

I know when I was trying to get a media player installed onto a Linux Netbook for a friend that I got incredibly frustrated trying to do it, on Windows ita a matter of one click on a website and a double click on the installer and I was off. That's it.

No CLI, No fucking around with mirrors and file services... It just fucking worked.

So until you can sort out a way to do that on Linux, SHUT THE FUCK UP about how good it is.

Linux Is Evil.

So its been a good two or three years since I last used a Linux system, and god almighty I remember why I use to have migraines afterwards now.

They say you forget pain after a time, otherwise we'd have negative population growth, after all what woman would of had more then one kid before the advent of narcotic pain killers? I believe it now.

I used Linux as a server system, I'd access it via a CLI (command-line interface) from my nice and cosy WindowsXP work space, and as a server O/S it was pretty good even then, the late 90s when I first got stuck into it.

I tried Red Hat and err some CD only version I can't remember as well for a bit, but I never really got into them, as I needed Windows at work and at home I really just wanted to game and do web stuff without cocking around, so I went back to Windows full time after a while.

Now before you start flaming me and telling me I suck Bill Gate's cock, I'm not a rabid fanboy of any sort, I don't give a shit who uses what and I'm not on an evangelical crusade to convert the great unwashed, unlike some.

My issue comes when things get pushed onto people, and that's what happened today.

My grandmother went into town with a friend to get a new cheap EeePC (you know one of those tiny laptops with solid state memory) for just browsing the web, after getting my advice, so I gave it and told them to swing back later for setup.

I'd already set up a number of them without issue, but those were all XP versions, and foolish me after telling them explicitly to ask for a Window's version they came back with a damn linux version.

Let me just say I didn't actually mind the interface it had, it was fairly easy to get online, about the same as any late version Windows or Mac machine, but the problem came in when I tried to install something... Have you tried typing on those little things when you can crush a football with one hand? And Linux is all about the typing, but I muddled onwards, but not after ringing and asking if they could swap for an XP version, no they couldn't since the closest XP version was $200 more... lasigh.

After a bit of back and forth with the guy to get to that point he said "Linux is better then Windows" and he was lucky my Nana was in the room and I wasn't near him in person... so he got away without me swearing a blue streak or giving him a broke nose. Linux isn't better then Windows, and Windows isn't better then Linux, they are different systems for different people, my Nana can install software on Windows, its point and fucking click, you tried installing shit on linux if its not in the distro installed? IT’S A FUCKING NIGHTMARE

Anyway I pointed out to him calmly that he should of warned her she was buying a linux machine and he said "Well she was in the computer section looking at laptops so I assumed she knew what she wanted"... he works at Harvy Fucking Norman. I sent her there because its got decent after-sales support so I wouldn't have to deal with it, people who work at Harvy Norman shouldn't assume anything about their customers, never mind my Nana is pushing 76…

I rightly pointed out to him that most people don’t even know there are other O/S’ then Windows and those few normal customers who do only know of Windows and the Mac O/S… Linux is virtually unknown to normal customers, and people working at fucking Harvy Norman should know this shit, I never sold machine with Linux on it unless I made totally sure they understood it wasn’t Windows and didn’t have most of the stuff they were use to and was going to take a lot of effort to understand, Christ…

Anyway back to the topic at hand, which isn’t ranting at the idiocy of Harvy Norman “Techies”, Linux is fine for people who enjoy playing around with their O/S and having a lot of choices, but for the love of god, normal people would be totally lost, it took me 30mins to work out how to get the system to full desktop, never mind installing a decent media player capable of playing content off my server…

That reminds me I still need to work out a way to do that without it copying the entire file over first… which is a massive pain, Windows streams media files from a share, why can’t Linux? I’ve done it the other way around, files on a linux server streamed to a Windows PC, but Linux just wont stream content. But yea, Linux is very unfun and I’ve got a headache, but at least it's done and the person who purchased the laptop is happy enough, at least it came with Mozilla rather then the browse I remember as default from my Red Hat days... I shudder just remembering that... thing

But I suppose my main point is, don't sell computer systems that run Linux to people without clearly explaining to them what the fuck Linux is PLEASE, it just makes the geeks around them suffer.