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This article is strange… The author uses “being able to open Microsoft Office documents” as a common example of what an OS that claims to be easy to use should be able to do. Then says…
When people download Ubuntu 23.04 they get an OS that can do everything Windows 95 did - with 23.10 they don’t
No default installation of Microsoft Windows EVER opened Microsoft Office documents. If this was a simple oversight in the write-up it’d be fine, but the point is hammered over and over again.
I don’t have an opinion about Ubuntu including or not including more software in the default installation (my guess is it became too big to fit on a DVD?) but this article failed to make it’s point to me by making a comparison to Windows that isn’t true.
Also…
the world’s most popular desktop Linux operating system (that’s Ubuntu, for those of you playing dumb)
Is this supposed to be a cocky joke? I can’t tell. What metric of “most popular” is the author using?
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whatever the Windows App Store is called.
Officially it’s called the “Microsoft Store” but I don’t think anyone really calls it that (Same with the “Windows Explorer” until they renamed it to “File Explorer” as everyone has been calling it)
Which is why Macs only come pre installed with the App Store and finder
I reckon a nifty idea instead of preinstalling software is to have a file extension finder that suggests software based on the file extension. Sure, there are some file types that have multiple uses, but many proprietary solutions use distinct extensions, making it quite straightforward to organize the recommendations.
Is this supposed to be a cocky joke? I can’t tell. What metric of “most popular” is the author usiing?
Number of active users.
those numbers are nonexistent for most distribution, since forcing telemetry isn’t really a cool move in the free software world
The number of IPs hitting their software repos can be a decent way of estimating active users. Also, ISO downloads and so on.
There’s also the check connectivity to Internet ping that network manager does. Arch Linux defaults to Arch’s servers, etc.
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What metric of “most popular” is the author using?
Ubuntu claimed be the most popular Linux distro on their website, backed by hot air. People who didn’t know any better took that at face value, including the author of this shoddy article, perhaps.
They do have statistics about how many systems send upgrade pings. There are some caveats to that, but I believe the difference with other distros is significant enough for that not to matter.
What other desktop Linux would be more popular? Fedora? Arch?
Yeah that’s a pretty funny error, seems to forget that MS office is a very expensive bit of software and doesn’t come included with windows.
It does in recent times. My laptop came pre installed with win 11 and office home 2021(i think).
All i had to do was click activate to link the key to my email account. It showed up as a notification on first login.
Even if not activated it still would open files with that warning.
Including a trial to incentivize users into paying for the software doesn’t make it “built-in”.
Not trial. Home Single user license.
I’m surprised by the comments here, even though the article predicted the opinion of long time Linux users. I had hoped for a more considerate opinion regarding a distro also aimed at new users.
This is a bad move and I hope they reverse their decision for the 24.04 LTS release.i mainly agree on the decision paralysis point and that they had a minimal install opinion available before.
I use arch. Choosing your favorite music player is fun. Choosing your favorite music player, video player, pdf viewer, Browser, file explorer, system monitor, office suite and mail program is not fun. This also completely negates the “faster to productivity, from download to first boot in less time” argument. If you have an install script prepared: yes. If you’re a new user: no.
I thought more the logic behind this move was that people use a lot of web services these days so a lot of software on which is pre installed is redundant and hence a waste of resources.
Article author is being melodramatic about how much of a laborious task it is to press a couple buttons to install software yourself, but it’s also not hard for a distro to include optional sets of software packages available for selection during install.
It is for you and me, but imagine a new user. One who tries Linux for the first time. This user will be lost. When he or she needs to google “which software on Ubuntu to open files of type .bla” the Nth time, I can see them throwing up their hands in frustration.
And, as a long term consequence, ratings of Linux distributions saying “Unbuntu - no longer recommended for new users”.
I don’t know man. Mac OS also has no software to open a lot of file types out of the box but even people with little to computer knowledge are able to download the things they need from the app store. They can do the same in ubuntu as well
I use arch. Choosing your favorite music player is fun. Choosing your favorite music player, video Player, Browser, file explorer, system monitor, office suite and mail program is not fun.
So far, this was not necessary. If the intention is to drive off any potential new users of the Linux range of systems, making it hostile to beginners is an effective way.
Which is why beginners don’t use Arch.
Just make it that if I open an office document that the software center shoes up with “app not available yet, here are the best options”.
That’s what windows does. It works… Poorly.
Are people regularly opening Microsoft Office documents? I don’t think I’ve touched one since I was at school, which I finished in 2012.
Most people with jobs do have to open office documents frequently.
Yes?
