A big week for Linux: is user friendliness finally in sight?

Rodney Gedda

Rodney Gedda is the former deputy editor of CIO and former editor of Techworld.

Back in April I blogged about how far , have come to offering an integrated “user friendly” desktop experience on par with what people expect from Windows and Mac OS X. And in that very blog I also stated the battle for open usability is far from over and how Linux distributions putting out annoying regressions does no end of harm for the overall “feeling” that Linux is acceptable for the broader, non-technical computer user.

Two releases overnight have given me new hope.

First, let me quell a popular misconception about Linux and other open source operating systems – there are not enough device drivers available.

In reality Linux ships with more device drivers than any other operating system. They may not be “official” or “guaranteed” drivers, but they available to the user.

If faced with the dilemma of having a community-developed driver or one delivered by the vendor as an after-market accessory, then you should choose the free driver. Free drivers will always be available under any circumstances (a remote location, for example), whereas proprietary drivers may not.

That's not to say free drivers are lacking in quality, it just means they may not be as mature as those developed by a hardware vendor.

Bundling drivers for as much hardware as possible paves the way for a new wireless chip or TV tuner card to “just work” with minimal or no user intervention.

Windows' reliance on its third-party ISV ecosystem for device drivers means the user must have the specified driver to be able to use the hardware – either on CD or via the Internet.

The release of Linux kernel 2.6.30 us another big step in “upstream” driver support.

In open source circles the concept of “upstream” is discrete from “downstream” by way of low-level technology development and high-level user experience, respectively.

For device drivers, upstream is what the Linux kernel supports and downstream is how the desktop environments make the drivers work with GUI applications.

How free software is delivered and presented to end-users is a downstream concept.

This leads me the other significant free software announcement of the week, the release of Fedora 11.

Fedora may have missed the 2.6.30 kernels, but it – along with Ubuntu and OpenSUSE – represents one of the best efforts to make Linux more appealing to non-technical users. And let's hope regressions from Fedora 10 are nowhere near as bad as they were with Ubuntu!

The significant trend to watch here is the convergence of upstream and downstream.

Linux vendors may not have the resources of an Apple or Microsoft to throw at a seamless user experience, but that won't stop the community eventually reaching that goal.

Technology developments combined with collaborative events like Linux.conf.au, Google's Summer of Code and the Linux Plumbers Conference will eventually chip away the annoying stigma of free software being only suitable for highly technical people.

As I've said before, what I'd like to see first is less radical changes in upstream and downstream which should, at the very least, reduce the amount of significant regressions of the type that can ruin a user's experience.

The “I upgraded to the latest version and now sound doesn't work” type of regression.

With Linux now settled in a nice and predictable 2.6.x series the future looks promising.

Let's hope the distributors learn from past mistakes and put reliability and usability above the urge to rush new – and often quite high end – features to their consumers.