Thursday, August 15, 2013

The linux learning curve, never ending

I switch operating systems, to and from linux and windows. I never have to relearn windows, that is why Bill Gates is a gazzilionare. Linux is always a crawl, the thing has to be relearned every time. Why would a normal person remember all the 1960s style command terminal commands on linux? They do not, it is a waste of brainpower. Yet, here I am installing software repository software. First task, where does unbutu hide the terminal window. Then what kind of terminal do I need, then where did the software I loaded end up, then does the stated command line understand I have a zipped file. etc etc. That is a result of open source vs closed source, in Windows it will always work for 80% of the actions with no learning. Here is what I mean:
$ yum install curl-devel expat-devel gettext-devel \ openssl-devel zlib-devel $ apt-get install libcurl4-gnutls-dev libexpat1-dev gettext \ libz-dev libssl-dev
Actual humans are required to type in these hieroglyphics. These are not memorable codes, these are codes only a computer could remember. Linux will never be easy until google makes android popular on the desktop.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Android would never be popular on the desktop primarily because it's a single app primary interface as well as most apps being in java and each requiring their own jvm. The example you made of finding the terminal reflects poorly: it's trivial - the comment about which terminal hilights the difference; most linux osen allow the install of multiple types though you are quite free to limit yourself to the desktop environment default such as gnome terminal. It's called power and choice. The hieroglyphics to which you refer are clearly meant more for advanced users who probably want to automate processes using the built in Bash shell for example. It does take some learning but for most users not requiring that power and are happy with default point and click, as you seem to be, there is no need to be concerned with that additional power and flexibility.