A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

Five Reasons to Refrain from Switching from Windows to Ubuntu or a Similarly N00b-Friendly Linux Distribution

1. Even in Ubuntu, you can't do everything via the GUI (Graphical User Interface).  Remember DOS?   Remember these commands?  Remember their Unix equivalents?  Want to learn their Unix equivalents?  Because you'll probably need to, if you switch.

80% of what a normal user has to do, in my estimate, is doable via the Ubuntu GUI, from copying files to installing a printer to updating.  The other 20% is not; or, more likely, is doable via the GUI but is much easier to handle via the command line.  I've used GUI-enhanced wireless card controls in both Ubuntu and Kubuntu, and ended up getting rid of them and using previously unrecognizable combinations of letters such as sudo ifup eth1 to get wireless access.  If you're thinking, "I have not been using Windows for 15 years so I could go back to typing in text commands," then a Windows->Linux switch is probably not for you.

2. Your hardware may not be supported.   My previous laptop, a Dell Inspiron 600m, had in it a wireless card so unhappy with Ubuntu that my husband, an open-source-loving geek if e'er there was one, finally gave up in disgust and sent me back to XP.  My Thinkpad has run flawlessly, but it just goes to show that the open-source community has not come up with a perfect driver for every piece of software out there.  At least check this list before trying to put Ubuntu on a laptop.

2.5. iPods are supported; other MP3 players may not be.  My beloved Creative Zen Micro still does not know how to play nice with Ubuntu. 

3. There is no Quicken for Linux.   There are personal-finance, money-management programs: see GnuCash, KMyMoney, and a list here.  But having used, or attempted to use, both GnuCash and KMyMoney, I can personally say that neither is as easy to use as Quicken.  Also, if you tend to grab info from your bank and download it into Quicken, that's not as easy in the open-source equivalents.

3.5. There is also no EndNote for Linux.   If you don't work with bibliographies on a regular basis, this is no big deal.  If you're a grad student whose university pays for lots of copies of EndNote, and thus pretty much expects everyone to use EndNote?  Big deal.

4. Not everything with Microsoft Office-produced documents will go smoothly.  There is no Microsoft Office for Ubuntu, natch.  What there is is OpenOffice, which is made to imitate MS Office (or, rather, MS Office 2003).  OpenOffice can handle any .doc, .xls, or .ppt file you throw at it.  However, MS Office will not return the favor, and thus you will have to re-convert everything you save before returning it to Windows-bound colleagues.  Also, OpenOffice occasionally does funky things with any notes/comments added to an MS Word document via the Track Changes function.  Again, it may be one more step you don't feel like having to take.

5. The name is stupid.   "Ubuntu" in itself is only mildly patronizing, but the distribution names take the cake.  95, 98, XP, and Vista look positively dignified next to Dapper Drake, Edgy Eft and Feisty Fawn.   Don't think that switching to another version of Linux will solve the problem: Puppy Linux?  Mandriva?  Astaro?  Zenwalk?  Debian Etch?  (Etch is scheduled to be followed by Lenny.  You missed Potato and Slink.  Yes, there's a theme.) 

Later on this week, hopefully, I will be explaining why Ubuntu might well be worth the drawbacks.