Linux has been loitering with intent, and has generally been a PR pest to Microsoft for quite some time now. Its been a bit like a school child that has been waiting for ages to get a role in the nativity play. Its been telling its teachers and parents for ages that its absolutely brilliant at acting, and the audience will be able to believe in it more and like it more than the bigger boys who always seem to get the lead role.
So finally the big day comes and little Linux is given a great supporting part. He is really nervous and has put on his best clothes that he thinks the audience will like the most. As he wanders out onto stage at his cue the lights seem a lot brighter than he imagined, and the audience a whole lot bigger. The audience give him a round of applause as he walks on because they have heard so much about him. He delivers his first line and........ not a chuckle, it hasn't quite worked.
Little Linux is in a bit of a panic now - what he thought would amuse the crowd isn't really working. Its all a bit crap. He delivers his second line and the audience are a bit dissappointed, it wasn't what they were expecting. Then a bit of his costume falls off - oops that wasn't meant to happen!
Shortly after the bigger boys come back on stage and the audience are amused again, yes this is what they came for - it just works.
So Linux has finally got its big chance to impress the maintstream, not just geeks in darkened rooms with the stereotype acne. The netbook has arrived riding on the wave of cloud computing and cheap simplicity. Linux has generally risen to the occasion and presented the public with something it hasn't seen for 15 years (or since the Speak and Spell) - a computer with a simple no frills interface that just does what you need.
Its been very refreshing indeed. Cheap, light and portbale computers that don't have you paying for bloatware with features you don't need. The public have embraced it with open arms.
On the surface it all seems good. The interface is simple and in some cases locked down - you cant get up to much mischief, but then why would you want to, you only want to knock out a couple of emails and check Facebook anyway.
Well its all good until you try and do something even slightly off the page of the product managers spec sheet. If he didn't think about the thing you wanted to do, well you are out of luck mate. There is not a lot of flexibility in Linux for a non-geek.
Let me give you an example. I bought an Acer Asipre One netbook. The hardware is amazing. £199 gets you an attractive little machine that is pretty nippy. I used it with enthusiasm for a week until I tried to do something that I dont think is too out of the ordinary - connect to the Internet out of the home.....
The Aspire One uses its own tied down implemetation of something called Linpus Lite. Its easy to use, lightening fast but is so tied down you cant even install your own apps. A little search on the Internet and I learned a little hack to open up advanced mode and allow me to install Skype. I really shouldnt have had to hack it to install such a mainstream bit of software, and I sincerely hope they solve this in the future. But it all worked so all was good in my life again.
I have a 3G USB data card from 3. Brilliant little device that gives me near broadband speed access to the Internet almost everywhere for £10 a month (so long public WiFi). I happily plugged it into the machine and....... nothing...
Acer have stripped the ability to install a cellular modem out of the operating system. Even if you have the drivers its just not possible. Doh! Did the product manager not sit down for five minutes and think "what would people most likely want to do with a small, portable netbook? I know take it out of the house!". No he didn' consider it for even a second.
After nearly a week of research I managed to almost get it to connect once. I had to download some ripped Vodafone software in another language for another machine. Gain root rights to install it (yes I had to go to the Linux command line to install and configure it).
The process to get it to work each time was simply amazing. Each time I wanted to get it to connect I would have to open the Linux command line and gain root rights and then type a bunch of Linux commands. Then maybe with a following wind it might connect. I reckon for a non-Linux geek it was about five minutes of hacking before each connection. By that time your train arrived at its destination and you no longer have time to get your email anayway!
There is no way in the world even the most accomplished computer users are going to consider it.
But I don't like to give up easily. So I thought I would look into other solutions. I have a really nice 3G phone (Nokia E71, excellent). So I got the cable out and plugged the two together. Nope Linux is not going to do anything with that.
Ok Bluetooth must be the answer. No plugging a Bluetooth dongle in did very little, and even if I can get it to connect I just remembered it has no way to setup a cellular connection anyway. Oh dear.
Then I had a brainwave. Whilst at Nokia Zell am See this year I met a guy late one night at the bar. I had been drinking some sort of drink that had flames with some Finns but I vaguely remembered the conversation. He had a bit of software that sat on your Nokia phone and turned it into a WiFi hotspot using its 3G connection as backhaul. Brilliant! Come back WiFi all is forgiven.
So I buy the software, Joiku Spot, and actually its brilliant. I conected my big Vista laptop no problem. I try to conenct the Aspire One and...... it cant see the hotspot, why? Of course I should have realised the product manager hadn't just not thought about people wanting to connect on the move, he had proactively disabled everything that could allow it. My god he is evil!
The Acer Aspire One is possibly the only laptop that will not see an ad-hoc WiFi connection, it only sees infrastrucutre networks. Yes those happy chaps at Acer had stripped the ad-hoc bit out.
So thats it, there are no other avenues open to me. The machine has now been sold and I am actually quite sad as I really liked it.
I did think not all netbooks can be this thick, so I tried an Asus Eee PC (the one that started it all). That works not problem with the USB modem from 3 (although its not exactly user friendly). Problem is WiFi. Someone recently told me "Linux isn't all that good with WiFi, especially encrypted WiFi". He wasn't kidding. The preferred connection method of over 50% of broadband households is a bit of a no no. It simply would not work with my WPA encrypted network. Would have been nice if it told me that was the problem, but actually it was telling me falsely that the problem was it couldn't get a DHCP IP address, the crafty liar.
Even when I did get it working on WEP and unencrypted networks, every now and then it would just sort of throw up and refuse to connect to any WiFi network for hours for no real reason. I would then have to delete all my saved connections and re-set them up. And if that didnt work restore the whole computer back to factory setup and erase all my data, then it would randomly be fine for a while.
So that didn't work either. The fact is connectivity is just one of the problems. There are similar types of problem across the board. Linux just is not evolved enough yet. It needs some serious work to stop its inards from spilling out all over the unsuspecting beginner users lap from time to time. It needs not to require Mensa membership to connect to the Internet.
Although that is an interesting point, maybe this is part of some bigger plot to do with natural selection. perhaps I'm am being exlcuded from the Internet (and therefore life itself) because I am not smart enough. Maybe Acer are hoping to spawn an super race of smart people, and let the thickies wither and die on the vine. Anyway, back to business, sorry!
If you try Windows XP on the same devices its slow and more complicated to use. But it does work. I plug things in and they just work. I install software and it just works.
I think the main thing Linux is doing right now is to show the world what a great operating system Windows XP has become. Which is quite amusing really as Windows Vista was sort of showing the world that already.
My advice? Go and get a netbook, they are a brilliant concept. But just make sure you get the Windows XP version. Come back to the Linux nativity play in a couple of Christmas' time.
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