To give a historical perspective, there was a similar issue with Unix OS's a while back.
You'd jump from a Linux box to a Solaris box, and things wouldn't work the same way? Simple things, like flags on "ps". Or, more seriously, the "shutdown" command (shudder).
That's only the CLI. Then you get into what Window Manager you're using, what desktop environment, etc.
Did any of this benefit the end user? In the end, most of this all ended up coming back to something that looks somewhat like OS X or Windows. A launcher bar and a menu bar, and maybe some status icons. Frequently ones that looked and worked exactly the same as OS X or Windows.
Fundamentally, all that choice didn't help Unix get market share. It hindered it. People didn't know what to expect, and wanted consistency. The same commands doing the same thing for the rest of eternity.
Incidentally, this also explains the Windows 8 backlash. I'm pretty sure that most non-technical people would prefer a innards-updated, security-fixed version of 8 that looks and works identically to XP.
In short, the problem is not choice, it's lack of consistency.
I think Linux stood a real chance with the introduction of Ubuntu a long time ago. Graphical package management was enormous, coupled with Gnome and a very simple installation. But stagnation came very quickly. That distribution is 10 years old and all the changes to it only added more fluff, more bulk, annoying notifications, uglier windows, sprites and mini icons all over the place.
It looks the exact same except worse. I'm sure that some improvements have been made behind all the fluff. But they're ones you can't see and I'm having trouble thinking back remembering any problems earlier.
The problem wasn't lack of consistency or choice. It was like going from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Now I can only see myself using Linux as a stepping stone or rescue procedure for failed machines. I think we might be off topic though as hardware and software are very different things.
This article is about hardware, badly titled though it is.
> I think Linux stood a real chance with the introduction of Ubuntu a long time ago. Graphical package management was enormous, coupled with Gnome and a very simple installation.
From that perspective Ubuntu didn't add much to Debian, or existing variants like Knoppix.
> The problem wasn't lack of consistency or choice. It was like going from Windows 7 to Windows 8. Now I can only see myself using Linux as a stepping stone or rescue procedure for failed machines.
I don't follow. You thought Ubuntu was OK, and among one of the good things was consistency and opinionated UI -- and you think that's still there -- but you don't like it because of the theming?
You'd jump from a Linux box to a Solaris box, and things wouldn't work the same way? Simple things, like flags on "ps". Or, more seriously, the "shutdown" command (shudder).
That's only the CLI. Then you get into what Window Manager you're using, what desktop environment, etc.
Did any of this benefit the end user? In the end, most of this all ended up coming back to something that looks somewhat like OS X or Windows. A launcher bar and a menu bar, and maybe some status icons. Frequently ones that looked and worked exactly the same as OS X or Windows.
Fundamentally, all that choice didn't help Unix get market share. It hindered it. People didn't know what to expect, and wanted consistency. The same commands doing the same thing for the rest of eternity.
Incidentally, this also explains the Windows 8 backlash. I'm pretty sure that most non-technical people would prefer a innards-updated, security-fixed version of 8 that looks and works identically to XP.
In short, the problem is not choice, it's lack of consistency.