The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment

Technorati Tags: Ubuntu,Linux,EnvyNG,ATI,Nvidia,Install

"Content Consumer" - sorry can't find his real name on his blog - ran an experiment asking his non-techie girlfriend to do 12 progressively harder tasks with the new (and rather nice) Ubuntu 8.04 Desktop Edition: The Great Ubuntu-Girlfriend Experiment
 

Read the whole thing: it is a superb. The conclusion is particularly well written:

Conclusion

The main issue with the desktop experience is that the geeky programmers and designers assume too much from the average user. They assume the user knows about the way in which programs are installed, or how the file system is set out. The average user will not go out of their way to google for help or even read the associated documentation that comes with Ubuntu and its default software. The little information pop-ups and guided wizards are critical to explaining how the user can accomplish the basic tasks they most probably are trying to do.

I’d love to see a welcome screen for the first time you open up your desktop, with little videos explaining a few key concepts to how Linux and Ubuntu work. Maybe it could ask “What do you want to do?” and then explain how they could do this.

Linux won’t truly be ready for the desktop until someone computer illiterate can sit down at a the computer and with little effort do what they want to do. Erin’s intelligent, quick to learn and is reasonably well-acquainted with modern technology. If she had as much trouble as she did, what chance to the elderly or at least the middle-aged stand?

I was going to selectively quote from this, but I can't. It's exactly right.

I've been giving 8.04 about 15 minutes a day. My task is to replicate my Apache/MySQL/PHP/CVS development environment.

So far it's been about as difficult as my transition to a fully useful Mac OS X system was - which is to say not painless, but not so bad considering. Having said that, for a long time I was thoroughly stuck with standard Nvidia drivers being horrible (since Nvidia and ATI will not provide the source code to their drivers Ubuntu disavows them). The solution is the wonderful  EnvyNG by the seriously smart Alberto Milone. EnvyNG installs the latest drivers smoothly and simply.

However, I wonder whether despite the wonderful work that Ubuntu is doing for desktop Linux if it is all going in the wrong direction.

Perhaps they should be focusing on creating the first paradigm shifting "Web OS". They're trying to perfect the Linux version of something that OS X and Windows are already 98% correct on. That seems like diminishing returns. Inventing the next generation and so leap-frogging Apple and Microsoft seems like a much smarter use of time and energy.