Why do new people give up on Linux?

[AdamS]

was worth a try.

What scanner is this ?

[owend]

Canon CanoScan 4200F - works fine in WinXP!

[AdamS]

yep, canon tends to have horrid Linux support.

Brothers

HP

Hands down the most compliant with Linux.

[owend]

I know, but I had the Canon before I had the Linux, and since I don't scan vast amounts I can't justify replacing a perfectly good scanner (in case my wife notices ). I'd still love to be able to use it without virtual-boxing XP and transferring images via a shared folder!

[AdamS]

keep google'ing bro, lot of smart people out there.

[AlbertP]

There is no Linux support for this scanner according to the supported scanner list at http://www.sane-project.org/sane-mfgs.html

Maybe the Canon website has a driver, I haven't checked for that.

[owend]

AlbertP: I have checked Canon's website, often; it doesn't have a driver, which is why I was so pleased that some seem to get Canons working! I didn't mean to start a new thread here, the helpful advice sprang from my comment about my only real problem with Linux, the lack of my Canon scanner working in Linux. It's not too bad, I can access it from Linux via Windows XP in virtualbox, it would just be easier through Linux.

When the scanner needs replacing I'll check compatibility lists first, so probably HP! I have Samsung and HP printers which work perfectly in Linux, and I'm aware HP is very Linux-friendly across their range.

Thanks all for your suggestions, sorry they don't work!

Owen

[AlbertP]

Some Canon scanners work, that's true, but your one not. The list of scanners can tell you which Canon models are supported; at your one it says 'Unsupported'.

[vrkalak]

Moderator's comment:

It would be better if you made a separate thread; for the "Supported Scanners" problem
... and not attached to the end of this "Why do people give up on Linux?" thread.

Go on, make one . . . and let's get "this" thread back on topic.

[owend]

Agreed; as I said it sort of growed and growed. End of, promise!

Owen

[Elisa]

And what about to give it a tray and install the .exe (driver & toolbox) and then run & install it by wine?
As I tested it it's ok installed and working but due I don't have any Cannon scanner I don't know if that win app will recognize the scanner But try it

Here is the URL

http://drivers.top4download.com/canon-c ... ztmbm.html

[AlbertP]

Sorry but this is also off-topic.

Device drivers do not work in Wine.

[mahuhu]

Personally i've nearly given up the only reason i haven't is that i cant get windows to install SP1 update. I like linux and i don't mind the CLI but i think some computers are just not meant to be. I've spent about a month trying to find some way of trying to get drivers for my audio and as far as i can tell there's no way of updating them as they have no support. I must have looked on every linux site and tried everything to get my internal mic to work. i've just given up hope on it ever working, if i wasn't such a stubborn git i would of ditched linux already.

But, if it was my wife she just wouldn't stand for something not working "out of the box" even if it is free. I really think it depends on why the person installed linux in the first place, if it was just to save a bit of cash and have a windows replacement they aren't going to give it much of a chance. But if its because they want something different they will accept that there's a bit of work involved and stick at it. If the computer they are trying to install/run linux on has all of the driver updates etc that the particular computer needs to function properly then they will give the OS a better chance.

(i'm getting a new laptop soon anyway since my toddler daughter has a compulsion to try to destroy all of daddys nice things, so i've got my eye out for one that works completely with linux, and the ubuntu forums compatability list is a good starting point)

[AdamS]

I had a absent minded shrink/client leave Linux for windows the other day.

Hes always been a tad slow , but it became quite clear the reason was he had not the time to learn something a bit different.

Used windows all his life and I had removed some 19 viruses and another 200+ maleware from his systems.

He installed win 7 wiping ultimate edition 2.9.

2 days later, he thinks he has a virus again.

haha in your face you quitter.

That said, like many. He clearly has some bad habits, **** ?

Makes one wonder lol.

[Nexus]

12. Their favourite apps don't work on Linux or cannot be Wined (or they have never heard of Wine). Furthermore, no Linux equivalent exists. This is especially a problem in the professional world. Solving this could go a long way to getting profit motivated corporations to adopt Linux more as the costs of running Linux are cheaper (despite what Microsoft claims).

That is probably No.1 on the list.

Most popular linux distributions are no harder to use than Windows, but I already said it in another post Linux falls short on hitting the mark on all the top uses for every day home computer users.

[*]Communications - E-mail, Instant Messenger etc.
[*]Listening to Music - MP3, streamed music, sometimes you have to install Audio Codecs
[*]Watching Video - Most don't include Flash or DvD support or Codecs
[*]Web Browsing - Konquer sucks... FF or Chrome are acceptable.
[*]Gaming - WINE is a good step still isn't "there" yet.

Out of the Box Linux releases generally hit 3 out of the 5. Linux Mint is an exception it hits on at least 4. Watching Video and Gaming usually requires additional software, either Codecs for Video, and WINE for games and that's if the software is compatible, and often when it does run there are graphical/framerate/audio glitches. Linux needs commercial support to become something people will "want" to use, otherwise they will stick with the tried and true, though often annoying, Windows and Mac OS markets.

For business useages, Linux is iffy, if you are a large very profitable company you just have your software custom made, for small businesses unless you just want to use it as a File/Print server or as a terminal for software on a server somewhere then it's fine. But from what I've seen in most small businesses, they don't use Linux because the majority of the software has DYI support. You look things up and have to fix it yourself. They don't have time to spend doing all that when with Windows software you can submit a help ticket, or call someone and get walked through things or someone can come and fix it for you. Generally when something "borks" small businesses will be busy handling business not screwing around with a command line.

The next thing hurting Linux more than anything in my opinion is no unified installer format. Most end users don't want to compile code for their system, most developers either don't want to release their code or have to build 5 different installer packages, this is especially true of Commercial developers. If I wanted to install a fictional game called "Monkey Poo Slinger Simulation 2011" I don't want to have to go check to see if it's compatible with WINE, and if it is do possibly half a dozen work around to get it installed and working properly, and if I'm on 64-bit Fedora pray it doesn't have a runtime dependency that 64-bit WINE doesn't support, because then I have to compile my own WINE install as well. I want to click on a installer, enter my password and watch it install and enjoy it. If I'm on MINT and there is a .deb package for it fine it works, but what if I'm on Fedora and there isn't an .rpm? or only available as a Superdeb, urpmi? Get what I'm saying here, it is impractical for Commercial developers that will want to protect and control their source code to develop for Linux. Is there anything wrong with them wanting to protect and control their code, no absolutely not. Is it wrong they aren't supporting Linux, no it's not, we talk about freedom of choice in what software we can use, which distribution we use, they have the freedom to choose which platform they want to support, don't like it Dual Boot or limit yourself to WINE compatible Commercial software if a suitable alternative isn't available. Most people though just go to or back to Windows, or OSX. It does what they want, no installing codecs to watch DvD's all their commercial apps are available, no biggie, for them it's practical. Me, I Dual Boot, there are a few things I prefer that do not and will not every work on Linux natively, why? Because Microsoft owns them.

[owend]

I think you've analysed it well, Nexus; most potential users aren't bothered about "under the hood", they just want it to work without much if any tweaking; Mint is arguably the nearest to that in Linuxworld, with easy codec and video driver installation which often cripples other distros, but certainly for most home/home office use there are several distros which do a good job.

You don't mention a major point in Linux's favour, that most distros include a vast (possibly too vast - do you really need three different video players?!) range of software which the Windozer has to obtain and install separately; and most distros' software collection is well integrated. And free! If you add the cost of MS-compatible commercial software (eg Office, Photoshop) it adds hundreds of £s/$s to the cost. I know some open source software (eg OpenOffice) has Windows versions, but I would suggest that if a user is unwilling to try Linux, perhaps he/she is unlikely to look for open source alternatives to the advertised MS products?

Perhaps if developers looked more towards:

a) the same installation procedure for all distros

b) one program per application but with all the bells and whistles and codecs integrated or one-click downloadable to cover licencing etc

c) one-click install packages which would work on all formats (ie like .exe in Windows, rather than .deb, .rpm etc) - possibly with a bolt-on interpreter? Then each distro could keep its identity while still allowing access to the full range of software.

d) full and simple integration with Windows formats (eg OpenOffice defaulting to save as .doc, .xls rather than .odt, .ods), to encourage crossover, as users would now their data were not going to be lost

I appreciate this might narrow the range of distros and features, which is one on Linux's strengths, but it would vastly increase the potential userbase, and if there was a single working base protocol commercial support would become easier (and thus cheaper and more widely available), and commercial users would increase which would increase the userbase which would increase the support etc ad infinitum.

I don't suppose it'll happen, but it would encourage new users, and hopefully keep them.

[exploder]

I recently installed Windows Vista on a computer that would not run Linux properly and it gave me the opportunity to see what the real differences are. Windows does not have all of the codecs by default, you have to go and get them yourself. Many Linux distributions have all of the codecs by default but things like flash do not work as well as they do in Windows. Here is why, Windows versions tend to be around for years, there are no drastic updates so it is easier to come up with good graphics card drivers. Many Linux distributions drastically change every 6 months and new graphic drivers are needed to keep up with the changes. This causes problems for the manufacturers, Adobe and ultimately the end user. Linux users have trouble viewing the multimedia content they want, Windows users have to deal with all of the crap ware that comes bundled with the codecs they download. Everything for Windows seems to want to add a toolbar to the browser and you have to be careful not to let this kind of junk get installed. The Linux user gets his codecs from their distros repos and does not have to deal with that. In the end though, the Windows user is probably going to have better working multimedia because they have more mature graphics card drivers.

There are no end to the number of games that will run in Windows, Linux is very limited in what is available and programs like Wine just aren't going to cut it for the serious gamers. Again it all goes back to drastic change and the graphics drivers. Lets face it you can't even have a decent screen saver running with the open source nvidea driver let alone expect to play any decent games.

Anyone can run Linux, Windows and the Mac OS, if you can click a mouse you can run any of these with no problem. Windows does not supply as many drivers out of the box, often you have to make sure you get them before you do an install or else you are going to have problems. You do not need any drivers before you install Linux but often if there is no driver for something out of the box, it probably is not going to work or it's a nightmare getting the device to work. Both Linux and Windows have their faults with device drivers but the odds are better for finding a working driver for Windows.

The whole thing about people not sticking with Linux seems to revolve around drastic changes and drivers. It would be a nightmare being a hardware manufacturer trying to keep up with all the changes in Linux, especially with such a short release cycle, drastic changes, different distros using different versions of different things and so on. I installed Windows Vista, it was not considered to be a good release but Microsoft has supported it since 2006 and fully updated it runs alright and I have all of the same current open source applications installed that I use on any Linux distro. Most Linux distributions require you to install the latest release every 6 months to have current applications or seach for ppa repos.Windows users have no problem getting current applications, lets face it everyone want the new version of Firefox when it comes out. Most Linux distributions turn a deaf ear to users wanting new versions of popular applications and then say it could effect the stability of the system! How stupid is that! You might as well say that the system is far to fragile to update because that is just what statements like that imply to users!

Think about it, a distro will go with the latest xerver-org packages that are barely tested and screw up everyone's graphics drivers and that's alright but updating to a new version of Firefox, LibreOffice might break something! Come on, it's stupid! As long as Linux distributions do things this way people are never going to stick with it unless they want to fix things all the time and search for ppa repos. PCLinuxOS KDE seems to be the only distro that listens to what people want. Changes to xserver-org came about slowly until there was a real need and application updates come in quick. If more distros took the same approach more people would be inclined to stick with Linux and fixes for drivers could be put in place. There are fault in any operating system but people want a base with real long term support and updated applications to enjoy or use to get their work done.

[lmintnewb]

They heard how great and user friendly ubuntu is. How it's the end all be all of nix and so tried it 1st ? Found out it's gawd awful and went soaring back into the craptastic arms of M$/closed source after experiencing the unbridled horror that is buntu ? Toolbars oddly running along the top and bottom, windows controls reversed for some unknowable buntuish reason !!! Ugly as mud by default ... hmmm. Even the same color come to think of it. Ahhhhhhh, if this is da best linux has to offer ... FORGET IT !!!! D:

Well that's how I felt about ubuntu 10.10 anyway. LOL. Then Mint saved the day and gave me the encouragement to continue onward on da OS road less traveled. It's been a lot of fun and a fantastic experience since. Finding out that ubuntu is by no means anything like the best the nixverse has to offer da world.

[exploder]

They heard how great and user friendly ubuntu is. How it's the end all be all of nix and so tried it 1st ? Found out it's gawd awful and went soaring back into the craptastic arms of M$/closed source after experiencing the unbridled horror that is buntu ? Toobars running along the top, windows controls reversed for some unknowable buntuish reason !!! Ahhhhhhh, if this is da best linux has to offer ... FORGET IT !!!! Well that's how I felt about ubuntu 10.10 anyway. LOL.

That is probably not too far from the truth my friend! I have seen Windows forums that have sections dedicated to Ubuntu! Some people really believe that Ubuntu represents all Linux, we know better than that but Ubuntu is plastered all over the web and people don't know there are better choices. I went to several Windows forums searching for information when I was tweaking out Windows. Ubuntu paints a target on itself because they grab all of the media attention but have bad quality standards and I have no problem expressing my dislike for what they do.

[kmb42vt]

They heard how great and user friendly ubuntu is. How it's the end all be all of nix and so tried it 1st ? Found out it's gawd awful and went soaring back into the craptastic arms of M$/closed source after experiencing the unbridled horror that is buntu ? Toobars oddly running along the top and bottom, windows controls reversed for some unknowable buntuish reason !!! Ugly as mud by default ... hmmm. Even the same color come to think of it. Ahhhhhhh, if this is da best linux has to offer ... FORGET IT !!!! D:

Well that's how I felt about ubuntu 10.10 anyway. LOL.

That's because the so-called user friendliness of Ubuntu is almost entirely based on hype and very little reality. As user friendly as the Ubuntu GUI is, trying to actually use it "out-of-box" is not. What it does provide is an excellent base for another GNU/Linux distro, like Linux Mint for example, but as 'exploder' states in the previous comment, it's bane is the 6 month release cycle, driver problems, lack of updates for basic software such as Firefox, Thunderbird, etc and the almost entire lack of gaming support for popular games that run on Windows (and some on Macs) but not on any Linux based distro. It doesn't make sense for any popular game manufacturer to support such a fragmented environment as Linux based OSs all with different bases and release cycles. Which one would they choose?

Now I use Linux Mint exclusively, Windows does not reside on my hard drive. This is not based on any sort of "principle" or anything like that, it's just that Linux Mint serves all my needs and then some and I don't have to continually mess around with updating "internet security suites, removing garbage files that Windows leaves all over my hard drive and defragging my hard drive (I have nearly 30 years working professionally with MS OSs so I know what I'm about). For others it may be some other distro than Mint--to each their own. The simple fact is that like OSX, Linux based OSs for the foreseeable future will always serve a small niche of home computer/power users as compared to Windows users (this does not include server installations where Linux dominates). Just for the reasons that 'exploder' stated.