Linux users often debate about whether it’s a good idea to evangelize about desktop Linux or not. Many are quite enthusiastic to the point of misrepresenting desktop Linux as some cost-free version of Windows that also has no problems. Others have a quiet elitism that says, “I don’t really want the masses using desktop Linux. They’ll just dumb down the community.” Perhaps what would be best for desktop Linux is something in between, something that has worked in courtship for eons: playing hard to get or, as The Tao of Steve puts it, “we pursue that which retreats from us.”
You don’t have to be elitist and snobby about it. You don’t have to make it seem as if you’re better than other people who don’t use Linux. Just don’t try to sell it. Don’t seem desperate. Don’t try to convince people to use Linux any more than you would convince a potential suitor to court you. Don’t act like a shady telemarketer.
If you put forth this hard-to-get attitude, you may satisfy both the overeager evangelists and the passive elitists. Overeager evangelists (I know, because I was one a couple of years ago) shoot themselves in the foot by trying to convert everyone over to desktop Linux, even those who aren’t ready. Like a bad blind date, the conversion goes sour, and the potential convert goes running back to Windows. Elitists make even those who have an open mind feel too intimidated to make what could be an easy transition. If, however, you just honestly say, “Hey, it won’t be easy” but also don’t look down on “the masses,” you may see more people coming and staying than being scared away (or trying and running away).
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen people post angry threads in the Ubuntu Forums, because they felt misled by the slogan Linux for Human Beings and some tech news article hyping up Ubuntu in that “tired of viruses and spyware in Windows?” vein. Well, two years ago, I wrote a post called “Is Ubuntu for You?” and it’s still thriving. I still get people regularly responding that they have indeed found Ubuntu is for them. Almost all of the replies (whether Ubuntu ended up being for them or not) are polite and respectful because I laid it out honestly. I didn’t hype up Ubuntu. I didn’t try to make it seem as if Ubuntu is magic or will take away all your problems. I actually spent quite a bit of time warning people of the kinds of problems they might run into.
Give it a try, you evangelist or elitist. You may be surprised by the results.
Yes Sir. I definitely agree on your opinion/thought/realization.
Yep. And that person that shot himself in the foot just to freakin’ get people into Linux is an idiot. He should just ask friends to try it, and if they didn’t like it, that’s fine.
Oops… sorry, I’m meant ‘those people’…
Sorry if I came off wrong.
I’ve been so indifferent about Linux advocacy in the last year or so that I’ve really not thought about it much.
I neither push Linux on people nor do I decry it.
However, it’s not a deliberate strategy on my part. I have just become so used to Linux in 6-7 years, the situation is reversed. I was actually excited about Windows Vista.
But anyway I haven’t thought much about this issue of late since I’ve become so disgruntled with the Linux “community”. I don’t like online Linux communities any more. I occasionally post on http://forums.debian.net for technical issues but beyond that, I’ve completely cut myself off from LQ.org and other websites where people just don’t get tired of discussing the same old issues and problems over and over again.
Agreed. Hyping Linux too much can backfired. as you have clearly illustrated here.
I understand what you mean, hari, about being disillusioned with Linux communities. I took a little breather from the Ubuntu Forums for a month, and it was frustrating. What I realized, though, is that I like helping new users. I may get tired out by the old Linux isn’t ready for the desktop and KDE v. Gnome “discussions,” but I do not tire of helping new users get their feet on the ground.
Yeah, and you told me neither is better, just different styles and other things.
This “hard to get” strategy seems to have worked for me.
My brother is a part-time Ubuntu user now as is my cousin. Interestingly, my aunt (60 years old) is now a full-time Ubuntu user, the Vista that she got with her new computer was too buggy for her and she’s very satisfied with Ubuntu as a replacement. In fact, she was raving about Beryl the other day when we had that part of the family over for a visit, my cousin set it up for her. She said it was much more impressive than anything Vista could offer.
And I had nothing to do with it except for my passive influence :)
My frustration with Linux forums went way beyond just the flame wars. I just felt my contributions weren’t valued enough and that I wasn’t making any difference no matter how much I tried to contribute positively.
There are a lot of hyperactive super-kool kids running loose on Linux forums who don’t know basic courtesy. It happens on a lot of tech communities.
If I ever do contribute on any Linux forum, it will have to be on my terms and I will have to be on the staff. I don’t mind not being wanted, though as it suits me just fine.
Sadly, it wouldn’t work. We need to be in their face face; they need to recognise us, like they recognise the mac users…
But we might have reached that point. In which case, going “hard to get”, sort of between “zomg look what I can do!” and “phh we’re so much cooler than you” would be interesting. But Linux needs to have its advantages pushed; spread CompizFusion, spread Konqueror (Say what you will, but it’s a logical program) and KDE, spread Xfce and Gnome, spread the benefits of a journaled filesystem and better security…
Poking fun at Vista will sway some people, but not everyone, you know, because everyone’s going to be like “Oh, I don’t care, my friend told me I can reinstall my old XP on a new PC, I’ll just do that and maybe I’ll put this “Linux” thing on the older PC…” but if we push all the benefits, and try to downplay the negatives (No Photoshop even if Gimp and Pixel are close, DirectX support is not complete but openGL games are stronger) we could sway some.
Like one time a friend of mine was getting excited about Vista’s Flip3D, I told them to go look up some videos of “compiz” or “beryl” next time they went to YouTube. A long with the better security (And the fact that they can still run LimeWire ._.) I had them pretty much going “Wow that looks cool!” sort of like how sometimes you see people rush to the macbooks/imacs at bestbuy and oggle them.
But fehhh here I am, going on and on…
I don’t know, hari.
If it weren’t for the LinuxQuestions forum, I’d have never found you and your blog.
Linux forums aren’t that bad in my book.
1) Linux forums IMHO, is still better than Ubuntu Forums just because of its MASSIVE support base, but
2) I’m tired of being on the forum, getting griped at because Ubuntu isn’t the promised land. People need to quit spreading information while omitting the bad parts.
3) I’m also tired of people saying, “Well if you don’t know what this
“strace -f -o /tmp/log ./configure
# or make instead of ./configure, if the package doesn’t use autoconf
for x in `dpkg -S $(grep open /tmp/log|\
perl -pe ‘s!.* open\(\”([^\”]*).*!$1!’ |\
grep “^/”| sort | uniq|\
grep -v “^\(/tmp\|/dev\|/proc\)” ) 2>/dev/null|\
cut -f1 -d”:”| sort | uniq`; \
do \
echo -n “$x (>=” `dpkg -s $x|grep ^Version|cut -f2 -d”:”` “), “; \
done”
(Or something like this, this is just the first thing I found, and this auto generated dependencies for source codes.)
Does, then you should use Linux at all because your a n00b.
3) I’m tired of people using Beryl and Compiz Fusion to buy people over. Its not stable, admit it!!!
P.S.
Aysiu, you should put something about how much Ubuntu costs. “Something doesn’t work, this sucks.” “How much did you pay for it?”
Of course, I do admit I made a lot of friends at LQ.org.
It’s just that I started wearying of the direction taken by the forum and the way it became far too commercialized.
I still lurk around there, but I don’t post at all there these days. That’s why I keep in touch with my friends through e-mail or blogs.
Trickykid and XavierP are today one of my best friends from LQ.org and so are you. It’s not politic to say so, but there are some long-time members there whom I don’t like and whose attitudes repel me.
@hari
Well, I’m glad you got at least some good out of having participated in LQ.
@Frak
I agree with points #2 and #3. About #1, I do see a massive support base, but for Ubuntu-specific questions, the Ubuntu Forums are a lot more responsive.
And I don’t like to reinforce the idea that free software is supposed to be sub-par (“you pay for what you get”).
Mmm, I’m kinda a passive elitist myself. A lot of people around me who are barely computer literate don’t want to touch anything different. Not that I think them inferior for this, but some of them are the sort that ‘fear change’, if you would. Not at the higher end of the mental spectrum.
I like it, I can see the T-shirts now,
“You’re not good enough for Linux”
“Linux would be worse off for your involvement”
“Linux doesn’t want you”
But seriously, I am not helping anyone with their Windows problems any more. I will help them install Ubuntu or Fedora, but I will not attempt to fix an inherently broken operating system.