Linux.com Still Unhelpful for New Users
Linux.com, which was taken over recently by the Linux Foundation and received a major overhaul, has gone live. The site has a slicker look and contains a lot of useful information targeted at experienced Linux users. Unfortunately, like the old Linux.com, the site is not a very intuitive resource for beginners.
As I wrote a while back, the original Linux.com site, like its counterpart Linux.org, assumed that visitors already knew a lot about free software when they arrived. I had hoped that the Linux Foundation’s redesign of the site would make it a resource for individuals seeking to get started with open-source operating systems, but unfortunately, that hasn’t proven to be the case.
Linux in the eyes of a “normal person”
To illustrate the point, let’s put ourselves in the mindset of a “normal person” seeking to install Linux–and by normal person, I mean an individual who has no idea what open-source means, doesn’t know anything about computers beyond the basics of everyday use and has heard that Linux is a free alternative to Windows, but isn’t sure where to download or how to install it. I was this person once, and I suspect many of my fellow Ubuntu users were as well.
Chances are good that our normal person will end up at Linux.com, since it’s the second search result when one googles “linux.” Once at the site, she’ll probably first take note of the flash animations at the top of the homepage, which are currently targeted at “Linux professionals” and “gurus”–content that’s not likely to assist a new user in figuring out where to get Linux.
Undaunted, our normal person might next take her search to the navigation bar and hover over the button labeled “Learn,” which will lead to a section of the site named “How tos.” Although that seems like a reasonable place for an article titled “How to install Linux,” she won’t find one there, even if she manually navigates through the poorly organized list of links (in order to get to the H’s to see if there actually was an article called “How to install Linux,” I would have had to click “next” about thirty times if I hadn’t instead thought to edit the URL manually to select the desired page).
The next logical step in the search for instructions on installing Linux is to query the site’s search box for terms like “download” or “install”. These bring up links to write-ups on various Linux distributions, most of which include download URLs. Unfortunately, user-friendly distributions like Ubuntu and Fedora are not given priority over obscure do-it-yourself releases, making it unlikely for a new user to find what she’s looking for.
If the user is lucky enough to know what a Linux distribution is–and most neophytes are not–she might notice the “Download Linux” link available under the “DistributionCentral” button in the navigation bar. There, again, she’ll find a long, alphabetical list where the handful of distributions designed with new users in mind are hard to find among the more numerous hobbyist versions that will do nothing but turn a normal person off to free software forever.
Sending users back to Windows
Somewhere deep inside Linux.com, there might be a straightforward, beginner-friendly article on downloading and installing Linux. But I couldn’t find it, and I doubt many normal people will either. Instead, they will become frustrated and assume that what they have likely heard about Linux–that it’s only for geeks–is true, and crawl back to Windows or OS X.
It would be great if Linux.com’s homepage included a prominent link to realistic instructions on choosing a beginner-friendly distribution, downloading an ISO, burning it to a CD and launching the installer. But it doesn’t, which is very unfortunate for new users trying to figure out what the Linux thing is all about, and for members of the free-software community seeking to convince more people to make the switch.
Great post, Christopher. If it were up to me — and if splash pages aren’t out of fashion, which they may be — I might have the opening page be something as simple as “Want to get Linux?” and “Already Got Linux?” with the first link leading to simple instruction focused on the most user-friendly distributions, and the second link sending you to the main site.
I looked at their “download linux” page and left too. Wtf are they thinking – afraid if helping linux and getting their feet wet by the complaints of minorities? That’s not helping anyone.
But the tuts page and the developer section is nice though – linux needs something like MSDN.
I can’t get excited about that site not being beginner friendly. Maybe everyone would be happy if they just had a link at the top of their home page that said “I you don’t understand these web pages go to http://www.ubuntu.com“.
After all the REAL geeks need to have their web sites, too 🙂
Walt: I agree that the new site is a great resource for experienced Linux users and for promoting collaboration between the various components of the Linux community, which has been needed for some time. For this purpose, it deserves more credit than I gave it in the article; thanks for pointing out its value to to the ‘REAL geeks’ 🙂
However, as the authors of the other comments point out, the site would have done an important service to new Linux users by helping them download and install a beginner-friendly distribution–and there’s no reason it couldn’t have done that without also catering to Linux gurus.
I suspect that the Linux Foundation decided not to provide instructions targeted at new users because it doesn’t want to get mired in the politics of privileging Ubuntu or Fedora over obscure home-spun distributions made by geeks in their basements. Although most of the Linux community would probably agree that Ubuntu is the best distribution for most new users, there’s a minority that can’t get it through their heads that not everyone is an elite hacker, and that most people looking to switch to Linux just want things to work with as little effort as possible (or maybe these individuals don’t want “normal people” using Linux at all, which is a valid opinion).
I wish the Linux Foundation would follow the will of the vast majority instead of worrying about being 100% politically correct–after all, it’s called the Linux Foundation, not the GNU/Linux/HURD Foundation, so it’s already offending the Richard-Stallman types because of its name.
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When I looked at the distro page yesterday, they had a list of like 5 distros for normal folks right at the top (Fedora, Ubuntu, SuSE, a couple others).
Mackenzie: I see that now too–thanks for pointing this out. Either that content wasn’t there the other day, or I missed it (which is certainly possible). It’s good to see the “Popular Distributions” more prominently displayed–although I’d still argue that they could be a bit easier to access from the homepage, since people who don’t know what a Linux distribution is in the first place are unlikely to find the link.
Good point. if i were looking into linux i think i’d probably go to that page and leave pretty quickly. If i had just heard about linux and just wanted to look into it i might just look at the page and give up thinking the ideas as too obscure.
I think you’re doing a great service to Linux — and, I hope, ultimately the global community of computer users — by exposing Linux’s ugly, user-hostile underbelly. The existence of a site like this is evidence that things are changing for the better. And I still salute all the people who are contributing their time and talents for free — even if the results are sometimes off the mark.