Serdar Yegulalp performs an exhaustive analysis of two desktop operating systems — Ubuntu and Windows Vista — which eventually led to his findings that Ubuntu still fails the “Granny Test”.
… Ubuntu works best at handling ordinary day-to-day applications that don’t require a particular operating system to work well, whereas Vista is more polished, and contains a number of convenient features that most of us can’t live without. In short, although getting close, Ubuntu doesn’t yet pass what Serdar calls “the Granny test,” of being easy enough to use to pass muster with the general population.
After installing Ubuntu on my desktop PC and toying with it for a week, I still find myself booting back to Windows not only because all of the apps that I use only runs on XP but because all of the newer hardwares that I plug into the system just basically works with it without me lifting a single finger (or something close to that).
But there’s at least as much about Ubuntu that I find disheartening or frustrating. There are still too many places where you have to drop to a command line and type in a fairly unintuitive set of commands to get something done, or edit a config file, or — worst of all — download and compile source code. For a beginner, this last is the kiss of death, because if compiling code fails, a beginner will almost certainly have no idea what to do next.
Maybe someday, after a few more major versions, Ubuntu will get there and finally pass that Granny test.
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Hi,
I haven’t been able to load google in my laptop for two days. I can go to google news but only through a direct link: I can’t do it by typing news.google.com, but I can go there through my slim stat link at the back end of my blog (e.g http://www.google.com/news?q=zune&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B2RNFA_enPH209PH209) From there I can go to google images, google video, froogle and others except google web search. This could be a spyware or globe broadband. Most reasonable suspect is spyware or adware, but I have Windows Protector, Spybot and Symantec corporate edition, which I update every day. And if it’s a spyware that blocks google or reroutes it or what not then why isn’t this news?
Can anyone help?
Hardware vendors are a pain. Most of them only support Windows for now.
When I decided to switch to Linux (Ubuntu), I made sure I researched and bought hardware that is Linux compatible (Intel/Nvidia/etc). I’m very happy now as everything I use works perfectly fine (even Beryl does). I will never turn back to Windows again. You should try it.
But it passed the Wifey Test. At least that’s how it is in our house.
We’re doing fine with Ubuntu at home since last year.
No OS X comparison?
grabe naman…ubuntu vs vista? mismatch yata hehe…
lalaban ang ubuntu kung sa pentium 3 patatakbuhin na 256 lang memory haha
It also passed the Wifey test at home. I installed it on my laptop that only has 256 MB of RAM and since then, my wife hasn’t complained about long boot times and page loading on Firefox that was a pain when I was running Windows XP.
does it pass the techie test?
question 2: All hardware being equal, if a computer store sells pre-installed/pre-configured box for Vista and Ubuntu, for the average college student (productivity, media, internet, web, photo, utilities and basic apps) - who would be the winner?
Ubuntu passed the $$$ test. :p
It failed the ‘non-geek’ test as well. Wifey and granny both had geeks helping them out. I installed Ubuntu on my T21 where I had my XP. It’s too darn slow and I can’t figure out how to connect to my wireless router.
a non-geek take on Vista.
http://www.stberlin.com/blog/index.php?itemid=3