Ubuntu Bug #1 takes down another household
Note: I first posted a version of the following on the Ubuntu Forums
Ubuntu Bug No. 1 takes down another household.
It is with no great joy that I report the beginning of the end of my family’s experiment with non-Microsoft operating systems. The next computer that attaches to the family network will run Windows exclusively.
Some background is in order. I am the oldest and most technically-inclined of three sons, and thus de facto Family SysAdmin. I am, personally, committed to GNU/Linux and will continue to run it on my own computers.
This household has actually been running desktop Linux in some form or another since 2004--initially as a stop-gap “recovery” solution to a broken WinME box, and latterly as a primary OS. All “initial setup”--installation, codecs, flashplayer, etc--was done by me.
The “kitchen computer”--the family’s real point of reference as far as desktop Linux is concerned--has been remarkably reliable. Extremely long uptimes (weeks at a time (!)), nothing breaking, everything in order. The main problem is that it’s slow, but that’s a hardware issue more than anything else--there’s really only so much you can do with a VIA C3 processor.
THE USERS
Dad, age ~60. Unusually precocious; responsible for getting our first computer back in ‘87 (a PC-XT clone running MS-DOS ~3.3). While very keen, not a “technical” user, and has only ever worked with Microsoft operating systems.
Mom ~50. Utter technophobe. Uses a kitchen computer running Ubuntu Breezy (a gift from me). Firefox, Evolution (only for e-mail), Abiword.
MiddleBro, age 16. Gamer and music enthusiast (recording). Potential but zero desire to learn any technical details or indeed follow manuals.
BabyBro, age 10. Minimal computer user; gaming needs met by consoles, but occasional schoolwork.
THE REASONS
It was recently decided that the house should continue to be a Microsoft household for the following reasons:
COMMENTS
Of course, I’m disappointed. The clincher argument, though, was the “schoolwork” one. The homework is Microsoft-only, and extremely prescriptive. I am not around most of the time to help with homework/teach workarounds/other ways of doing things. So BabyBro’s work suffers. The people who *are* around when he does his homework are either technophobic (Mom, who uses Ubuntu) or Windows-only (the rest of the house).
It has occurred to me that there has been a qualitative change in the way that “computers” as a subject are approached in schools--a change which acts (not subtly) to increase and reinforce Microsoft’s mindshare at the expense of both the flexibility of the general user population and Microsoft’s competitors.
Before computers were ubiquitous, basic computer instruction, when such instruction might have been available, would have been theoretical and hypothetical in nature. That is to say, the things taught and learned were very basic in nature: What is a computer? What does it do? What is input, and how is it put into the computer? What is output, and where do you get it? What is memory? What’s a disk drive? What’s the difference between an Operating System and an Application?
All of those questions were covered in a very general, theoretical sense. Kids in the ’80s and early ‘90s might not have actually had any computers at home, but they were expected to know, in general, what they did and how they worked. This, along with very basic keyboarding skills, was the bulk of my own early computer eduction.
Nowadays, however, with computers everywhere, it is no longer considered important to know what things are, or how the various parts of the computer work with respect to each other--the important skills in demand from the marketplace are the performance of very specific tasks on very specific software.
This has had the effect of making assessment very easy (a student’s progress is easily measured by his facility with the software package in question). It also, in my opinion, stultifies the potential user-base. Train someone narrowly enough, and he will eventually have problems applying skills he has already acquired to situations he has not yet encountered.
Given the recent experience in this household, and my new insight into how the younger generation is being brought up (digitally speaking), the task before the Free Software community is not merely technical, but political and economic. Technically-excellent solutions will be meaningless if they cannot be adopted by very large, stodgy, pro-Establishment institutitons: big business, government, the school system.
The problem is not essentially a technical one (although various technical problems may contribute to it), but rather a *human* problem: Ubuntu Bug #1. I could set up a system that is technically much more excellent than Windows, but the only user who would benefit from such a system would be Mom, since she has no OS preferences or training. The other users would actually suffer, because their training has been (or is currently) extremely prescriptive and OS-exclusive and/or they have no willingness to attempt something new.
Ubuntu Bug No. 1 takes down another household.
It is with no great joy that I report the beginning of the end of my family’s experiment with non-Microsoft operating systems. The next computer that attaches to the family network will run Windows exclusively.
Some background is in order. I am the oldest and most technically-inclined of three sons, and thus de facto Family SysAdmin. I am, personally, committed to GNU/Linux and will continue to run it on my own computers.
This household has actually been running desktop Linux in some form or another since 2004--initially as a stop-gap “recovery” solution to a broken WinME box, and latterly as a primary OS. All “initial setup”--installation, codecs, flashplayer, etc--was done by me.
The “kitchen computer”--the family’s real point of reference as far as desktop Linux is concerned--has been remarkably reliable. Extremely long uptimes (weeks at a time (!)), nothing breaking, everything in order. The main problem is that it’s slow, but that’s a hardware issue more than anything else--there’s really only so much you can do with a VIA C3 processor.
THE USERS
Dad, age ~60. Unusually precocious; responsible for getting our first computer back in ‘87 (a PC-XT clone running MS-DOS ~3.3). While very keen, not a “technical” user, and has only ever worked with Microsoft operating systems.
Mom ~50. Utter technophobe. Uses a kitchen computer running Ubuntu Breezy (a gift from me). Firefox, Evolution (only for e-mail), Abiword.
MiddleBro, age 16. Gamer and music enthusiast (recording). Potential but zero desire to learn any technical details or indeed follow manuals.
BabyBro, age 10. Minimal computer user; gaming needs met by consoles, but occasional schoolwork.
THE REASONS
It was recently decided that the house should continue to be a Microsoft household for the following reasons:
- INDEPENDENCE. They won’t always have me around to sort out problems. “We can’t call any Linux tech support, no tech support exists. The ISP doesn’t support it, and nobody we know but you runs it. If it all goes wrong, at least there are two people [Dad and MidBro] who kind of know Windows.”
- FAMILIARITY. They won’t consider an Apple machine, “as if something goes wrong,” says Dad, “I would be using an Apple machine for the first time in my life.”
- EXTERNAL REQUIREMENTS. BabyBro’s school is very big on having the children use computers. Unfortunately, the content of the instruction is actually of the “go to START>PROGRAMS>” sort--button-by-button, screen by screen handhold howtos for (naturally) Microsoft products. None of his classmates run anything but Microsoft software at home. Naturally, the school is an all-Microsoft environment. From an educational point of view, it has been decided that Microsoft will be better than any other alternatives.
- USER-UNFRIENDLINESS. This comes largely from MiddleBro, who might be considered an “intermediate” Windows user. Documentation is either non-existent or incredibly technical--he has no patience to RTFM. He is constantly frustrated by his inability to solve problems in Ubuntu, and my corersponding speed in doing the same from the command line. “You shouldn’t have to go hacking around to install a Flash player!” he protests.
COMMENTS
Of course, I’m disappointed. The clincher argument, though, was the “schoolwork” one. The homework is Microsoft-only, and extremely prescriptive. I am not around most of the time to help with homework/teach workarounds/other ways of doing things. So BabyBro’s work suffers. The people who *are* around when he does his homework are either technophobic (Mom, who uses Ubuntu) or Windows-only (the rest of the house).
It has occurred to me that there has been a qualitative change in the way that “computers” as a subject are approached in schools--a change which acts (not subtly) to increase and reinforce Microsoft’s mindshare at the expense of both the flexibility of the general user population and Microsoft’s competitors.
Before computers were ubiquitous, basic computer instruction, when such instruction might have been available, would have been theoretical and hypothetical in nature. That is to say, the things taught and learned were very basic in nature: What is a computer? What does it do? What is input, and how is it put into the computer? What is output, and where do you get it? What is memory? What’s a disk drive? What’s the difference between an Operating System and an Application?
All of those questions were covered in a very general, theoretical sense. Kids in the ’80s and early ‘90s might not have actually had any computers at home, but they were expected to know, in general, what they did and how they worked. This, along with very basic keyboarding skills, was the bulk of my own early computer eduction.
Nowadays, however, with computers everywhere, it is no longer considered important to know what things are, or how the various parts of the computer work with respect to each other--the important skills in demand from the marketplace are the performance of very specific tasks on very specific software.
This has had the effect of making assessment very easy (a student’s progress is easily measured by his facility with the software package in question). It also, in my opinion, stultifies the potential user-base. Train someone narrowly enough, and he will eventually have problems applying skills he has already acquired to situations he has not yet encountered.
Given the recent experience in this household, and my new insight into how the younger generation is being brought up (digitally speaking), the task before the Free Software community is not merely technical, but political and economic. Technically-excellent solutions will be meaningless if they cannot be adopted by very large, stodgy, pro-Establishment institutitons: big business, government, the school system.
The problem is not essentially a technical one (although various technical problems may contribute to it), but rather a *human* problem: Ubuntu Bug #1. I could set up a system that is technically much more excellent than Windows, but the only user who would benefit from such a system would be Mom, since she has no OS preferences or training. The other users would actually suffer, because their training has been (or is currently) extremely prescriptive and OS-exclusive and/or they have no willingness to attempt something new.