>Most users don't know what sudo, wget, make, or apt-get commands are, just to start.
Have you used Ubuntu recently? Or Mint? They've made a lot of strides in that direction, including fancy graphical package installers.
On the other hand, when I use any Linux, I typically drop to the shell and edit config files, but that's because I'm always trying to do something unusual. Otherwise I wouldn't be on Linux to begin with. But for the 95th percentile of what typical people use a computer for (basic email, web browsing, maybe basic text editing), Linux is as easy to use as a Mac or Windows. In fact, Windows and OS X only recently are catching up to how easy it was to get software on the popular Linux desktop distributions: It was a matter of running the software installer app and selecting the programs you wanted. Now Windows and OS X each have their own "app stores", but Linux had that bit of convenience first. The only thing that prevents Linux from being on more personal computers is the fact that it doesn't ship on them. Consider Android, which is a Linux fork, is on millions of devices (a million a day are shipping now), so there's nothing wrong with Linux that can't be fixed with a few apps to smooth the edges.
No, being a power user is what keeps me on Windows. There are no sufficiently good replacements for:
* Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom (and Creative Suite in general)
* Sony Vegas Video
* Corel Draw Suite
* FL Studio
* Visual Studio
* Microsoft Word & Excel (don't get me started on how badly OpenOffice sucks...I've tried to use it for years, and they just can't get even close to "It Just Works.")
* Netflix and Amazon streaming
Any one of these would require I keep at least a virtual Windows instance around, and some (like FL Studio) really need you to be running on the raw hardware.
I've tried, again and again, to use free versions of all of the above, and the usability and feature set is nowhere near what I need in the free offerings. I've given up at this point; there are just too many critical apps on Windows for me to jump ship.
>And I have used iTunes on Windows, and I found it wasn't bloated.
In my experience, iTunes on Windows is one of the most hated pieces of software around; probably second only to QuickTime. I hate it with a passion, and I hate the fact that I can't use other software instead. I'm running 16Gb of RAM, an i7 with 8 threads, and a fast SSD hard drive, and yet it's still slow and frustrating, not to mention awkwardly designed and buggy. Not sure what you're running that it doesn't seem bloated, but it absolutely (and frequently) screws up in talking to iPads. And the fact that it considers every new upgrade a "new computer install", threatening to lock me out of my content and devices if I don't "uninstall" it first from the older computers (that have been reformatted) is absolutely infuriating.
I think VirtualDub is open-source and exists on Linux. Good grief, it's been nearly a decade since I did serious video editing...but I'm sure Linux has something.
> Visual Studio
Eclipse, NetBeans, Emacs, KDevelop, ...there are plenty of Linux development suites
> don't get me started on how badly OpenOffice sucks
I've never had any problems; it does what it's supposed to do for me. What are you doing?
> Netflix and Amazon streaming
Linux has VLC, Totem, and Flash Just Works on Linux Mint.
> I can't use other software instead
Why not? Did you make the mistake of buying official Apple hardware? That's your bad, since generic MP3 players and Android phones do everything iJunk does, and are a lot cheaper.
I love both of these dearly, but they're a joke (feature-wise; Inkscape has a pretty sweet interface) compared to Adobe products. It's not that Gimp & Inkscape are feature-poor; Photoshop really does have that many more features.
> Eclipse, NetBeans, Emacs, KDevelop, ...there are plenty of Linux development suites
that are integrated with .Net? Almost certainly not.
> I've never had any problems [with OpenOffice]; it does what it's supposed to do for me.
OpenOffice's hit rate for correctly displaying MS-generated files is about 50%. I have to run a damn Windows VM at work to read .doc-formatted shit because it doesn't display correctly under OOo.
> Linux has VLC, Totem, and Flash Just Works on Linux Mint.
Not a single one of those supports Amazon streaming video (and I suspect not Netflix either, but I don't have a Netflix subscription). We have to use my wife's computer to watch Amazon videos because they don't work under Linux Flash.
Note that in my daily personal life, none of these (except for the Amazon thing) affect me in the slightest – I love Inkscape; I code C and Erlang in a cheesy simple editor; I write documents in LyX; I can even watch The Daily Show in mplayer (compared to which Flash's playback quality is a joke). Hence I use open-source software and love it. But I'm not 99% of the population.
> that are integrated with .Net? Almost certainly not.
There is MonoDevelop (http://monodevelop.com), of course. But speaking more generally, if you're working in .Net, you've already chosen to lock yourself into a proprietary vendor's trunk. I wouldn't advise waiting for free software developers to come up with things to make your stay there more pleasant.
> Not a single one of those supports Amazon streaming video (and I suspect not Netflix either, but I don't have a Netflix subscription). We have to use my wife's computer to watch Amazon videos because they don't work under Linux Flash.
Amazon video has worked fine in Firefox for me on Ubuntu forever. If you're trying to access it via Chrome, it won't work because Google removed DRM support from the Chrome Flash plugin (see http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&...). God help me for saying this, but that's one you can't blame Adobe for.
Netflix doesn't work, but that's because Netflix uses Silverlight rather than Flash, and Silverlight has never been Linux-friendly.
For the record, I've avoided .net and C#, so I'm not locked in that box.
I said Visual Studio because the C/C++ development features are pretty much unequaled. I've tried. At some level I hate Microsoft AND Apple, and would love to be a Linux user and get away from The Man. But I don't love the idea so much that I am willing to do even 20% more work to be on Linux full time, and honestly it would be far more than that.
Some things would be absolute showstoppers, like reading Photoshop files -- so I'd have to have Windows running in a VM. And while I'm sure that's getting better, the integration never seems to be quite as clean as you'd like.
>Amazon video has worked fine in Firefox for me on Ubuntu forever.
Good to know. Strike one thing off of my list. I expected that with that many items I'd likely get one wrong. The rest stands, though. ;)
Though colanderman made some excellent replies, I have a few things to add.
>What about Gimp and Inkscape?
colanderman was right: Adobe products are That Much Better. Gimp doesn't stand a chance. Nor does Inkscape.
Not to mention the fact that I get .psd and .ai files from artists that I have to open. Gimp can sometimes, maybe, barely, open a .psd file correctly. If it's just got an image layer in it, sure, Gimp will work fine. But if they have 30 layers that include tons of complex filters? Almost no chance it will be exactly as Photoshop will render it.
>I think VirtualDub is open-source and exists on Linux.
If I want to spend 200x longer getting feedback on simple edits, then sure, I could use VirtualDub. I've used VirtualDub in scripts to hack videos in an automated way. It's not a replacement for an awesome video editor.
Vegas uses DirectX to render a preview in real time. I can do edits and see a reasonable approximation of the result almost instantly.
>it does what it's supposed to do for me. What are you doing?
Things like expecting the defaults to be sane, which in OO they rarely are. I even have trouble with really basic things sometimes, like styled bullet lists, where something will just randomly get messed up. And the default bullet is this dot smaller than a period. What's up with that?
Again, though, the killer is getting .docx files from people and having them be Completely Broken in OO. I tried working with OO for several years, but finally gave up in frustration. I'm sure I wasted more than 40 hours fighting with it, which would have paid for my Windows AND Office licenses several times over.
>Eclipse, NetBeans, Emacs, KDevelop
Eclipse is about the worst development environment I've ever been cursed to need to use (for Android development -- thank all that's holy they're officially supporting IntelliJ now). And none of the rest do nearly the job that Visual Studio does at being a really good, well-integrated development environment. Debugging an app? Oops, need to make a change. Edit and continue? Bing! Recompiled in place. Stepping...
Aside from the fact that I'm developing software for Windows (in part), in C/C++, not Java. I know KDevelop can do that, but GDB just doesn't hold a candle to the Visual Studio debugger. I know, because I'm forced to use GDB on other platforms. Just like the Adobe products above: Visual Studio is That Much Better.
>Linux has VLC, Totem, and Flash Just Works on Linux Mint.
Answering the wrong question. Neither Netflix nor Amazon streaming works through Flash, VLC, or Totem. Also, IIRC Flash Linux either had its support pulled, or it was announced that would happen, so that's not going to help for long.
The point is I have a Netflix account and an Amazon Prime account. I get thousands of movies that I can stream for free -- on Windows or Mac. Maybe you pirate your movies? Sorry, not my style.
> Did you make the mistake of buying official Apple hardware?
Not a mistake. I develop apps for iOS and Android. Actually my brother sold me my first iPad used, and gave me my second iPad, but I needed them regardless, despite not really being happy with the Apple walled garden.
>generic MP3 players and Android phones do everything iJunk does
Sorry, even though I'm with you philosophically, that's not correct. I play a lot of board games, and (until recently) almost all of the board game companies that make games for iPad have been ignoring Android. A few interesting board games have been coming out for Android recently, but it's still a fraction of what's available on iOS. I'm sure the broader game market is similar, though.
My day-to-day phone is an Android, but I have and occasionally use iOS products (even when I'm not developing for them). So I'm cursed with needing to use iTunes from time to time. I also have generic MP3 players (well, I only buy ones that play OGG files, but you know what I mean), but those are gathering dust since my Android phone with 16G of RAM can hold enough music to keep me happy -- and it can stream from Google Music anything I've let Google know I own.
I know ALL the apps you've referenced, and many more options besides. I've even used most of them. They all are severely lacking compared to what I use on Windows. It's golden handcuffs: I know I could leave, but I know I'd be worse off if I did. So I stay.
Have you used Ubuntu recently? Or Mint? They've made a lot of strides in that direction, including fancy graphical package installers.
On the other hand, when I use any Linux, I typically drop to the shell and edit config files, but that's because I'm always trying to do something unusual. Otherwise I wouldn't be on Linux to begin with. But for the 95th percentile of what typical people use a computer for (basic email, web browsing, maybe basic text editing), Linux is as easy to use as a Mac or Windows. In fact, Windows and OS X only recently are catching up to how easy it was to get software on the popular Linux desktop distributions: It was a matter of running the software installer app and selecting the programs you wanted. Now Windows and OS X each have their own "app stores", but Linux had that bit of convenience first. The only thing that prevents Linux from being on more personal computers is the fact that it doesn't ship on them. Consider Android, which is a Linux fork, is on millions of devices (a million a day are shipping now), so there's nothing wrong with Linux that can't be fixed with a few apps to smooth the edges.
No, being a power user is what keeps me on Windows. There are no sufficiently good replacements for:
* Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom (and Creative Suite in general)
* Sony Vegas Video
* Corel Draw Suite
* FL Studio
* Visual Studio
* Microsoft Word & Excel (don't get me started on how badly OpenOffice sucks...I've tried to use it for years, and they just can't get even close to "It Just Works.")
* Netflix and Amazon streaming
Any one of these would require I keep at least a virtual Windows instance around, and some (like FL Studio) really need you to be running on the raw hardware.
I've tried, again and again, to use free versions of all of the above, and the usability and feature set is nowhere near what I need in the free offerings. I've given up at this point; there are just too many critical apps on Windows for me to jump ship.
>And I have used iTunes on Windows, and I found it wasn't bloated.
In my experience, iTunes on Windows is one of the most hated pieces of software around; probably second only to QuickTime. I hate it with a passion, and I hate the fact that I can't use other software instead. I'm running 16Gb of RAM, an i7 with 8 threads, and a fast SSD hard drive, and yet it's still slow and frustrating, not to mention awkwardly designed and buggy. Not sure what you're running that it doesn't seem bloated, but it absolutely (and frequently) screws up in talking to iPads. And the fact that it considers every new upgrade a "new computer install", threatening to lock me out of my content and devices if I don't "uninstall" it first from the older computers (that have been reformatted) is absolutely infuriating.