A few months ago I mentioned to my non-techy roommate that I was downloading Windows 7 Beta for a friend. His response was: "Sweet! Illegally?" Of course, he didn't know that Windows 7 Beta was a limited-time free (uh, beta) release.
Then last night I mentioned to my roommate that I was downloading Ubuntu 9.0 (or, as I referred to it for his sake, "a new Linux"). His response again: "Sweet! Illegally?"
Normal people do not realize that Linux is free. Because I was so miffed I didn't go into a discussion with him, but I bet my roomate did not realize that, in fact, everything I use on my computer I use without paying for. Of course he is aware of Firefox and programs like Pidgin, but has he been thinking all this time that I edit Office documents on a paid-for Linux office suite? Does he think I bought multimedia tools and quality disc-burning software? When he sees me working, does he think that Gedit and Eclipse are Microsoft products? What must he think when he sees me creating graphics in GIMP??
I am aghast because I am like every other geek. I didn't understand that normal people don't understand. No wonder people get pissed when I can't help them un-crash their Vista machines! They don't get that this is different.
Why Linux is only for geeks
Windows and Mac users will never know that Linux is bomb because they will never use it. They will never use it because the idea of installing a second OS does not fit into their minds. I don't mean to say they're stupid. What I mean is that, to most people who use computers, new things run as programs. Linux is a new thing to most people, so in their minds it must be a program that they can uninstall from Control Panel if they want. That's how normal people think, and that's fine. We just need to realize it.
We need to get normal people using Linux somehow. They will be generally unimpressed by the operating system itself. After all, normal people don't care about being able to write shell scripts or easily set up web servers. They will, however, be into all the free stuff. My guess is that they would also be impressed by the package managers included with most Linux distributions, with a little work. More on that later.
The problem is that Linux is an operating system, not a program, so they will never be able to see this neat stuff. At this point, the real geeks out there are screaming at me that Wubi is the solution. For those who don't know, Wubi allows you to install Ubuntu on Windows, as a program. If this is your solution, you are missing the point.
The issue is not that Linux cannot be a program, but that it is not really a program and is an operating system. There is a barrier. People won't start using an operating system within an operating system that already satisfies them.
Fixing it
Faster, sleeker, slimmer. This is why Firefox is slowly gaining market share with normal people. When I say to normal people, "Ah, I see you're using Firefox" the number one response is "Yeah, it's a lot faster". What they mean is, "Yeah, it's a lot faster than Internet Explorer" or more importantly, "Yeah, it's a lot faster than the built-in way to do the same thing with Windows".
One thing normal people certainly do understand is doing something different if it is faster, sleeker, and slimmer. This has been proven by Firefox (beats IE), Facebook (beat MySpace), Gmail (beat HotMail), and a myriad of others. I think Linux already has a pretty good leg up on this one. I could trick anyone into thinking that my junky laptop has 4GB of RAM because of the performance I get from Ubuntu. When I'm on my XP partition, it's as if there is no RAM at all. (I have 2GB, I believe).
The Linux community is smart, and geeks can push it to the limit. If we want Linux to be noticed for its speed, it's got to have some sort of speed. I say, keep it up.
Programs! Find, install, uninstall! Of course, Linux already does this very well. However, programs like Synaptic package manager need some changes to appeal to the normies.
First of all, there needs to be a version that gives less information. Normies don't want to know which dependencies have just been resolved. Ubuntu (and maybe other distros, I don't know) has been doing this for a while with the Add/Remove application off the Applications menu. It's Synaptic manager except more easily browsable, and it's an incredible start.
But it needs to be more. I'm thinking something along the lines of the Android apps market, which is extremely addicting. It's very graphical and there are thousands of options. Like iTunes for programs. We need to go there.
Free is cheaper than whatever the price of Windows is. Why is there not a popular company that is willing to market low-end laptops that come with Linux? And by market I don't mean Dell selling machines on linux.dell.com. I mean commercials on TV where they say, "Hey, this laptop is only $600 and it does all the cool stuff you want, and it's fine even though it's not Windows. See?"
I suppose this is not exactly a problem with the Linux community, but more a problem of markets. But still, it's not like we have no resources. People can get their startup Web 2.0 sites funded, so why can't someone start selling Linux machines? Like speed, price is a game-changer for normal people. Obviously, Linux has the price issue down pat. The only reason that's not recognized is that companies don't sell hardware with Linux on it.
Additional thought: there is enterprise-level software that runs on Linux. Enterprises use that stuff. They also like cutting costs. Where are the people going, "Hey, enterprises/businesses, buy hundreds of really cheap computers that easily integrate with all your other stuff and perform all your business functions!"
A start
I think a good start to all of this is as simple as me clicking "Publish Post" and starting that conversation with my roommate. I'm a geek, but all geeks are semi-normal on some level, and we retain the power to connect with other humans (most of us do). Until some things start to come together for Linux, the best thing to do as I see it is to keep the conversation up.
Normies?
I just realized that at some point in this post I started using the phrase "normies" to describe normal people. Normies?
Actually, I like it.
<3
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