Red Hat's chief executive has said that Linux needs to mature further before home users will get a positive experience from the operating system, saying they should choose Windows instead.
Linux is seen by Microsoft as its most dangerous competitor for desktop operating systems, and after a number of high-profile cases where government departments have switched from Windows to Linux-based systems, the OS has been making some progress. However, Red Hat said that the hype around desktop Linux is still mostly unfounded at the moment.
Matthew Szulik, chief executive of Linux vendor Red Hat, said on Monday that although Linux is capable of exceeding expectations for corporate users, home users should stick with Windows: "I would say that for the consumer market place, Windows probably continues to be the right product line," he said. "I would argue that from the device-driver standpoint and perhaps some of the other traditional functionality, for that classic consumer purchaser, it is my view that (Linux) technology needs to mature a little bit more."
Szulik gave an example of his 90-year-old father going to a local retailer in order to purchase a computer with Linux: "We know painfully well what happens. He will try to get it installed and either doesn't have a positive experience or puts a lot of pressure on your support systems," he said.
However, Szulik expects Linux to be ready in a couple of years after it has had time to mature. In the mean time, he is adamant that corporate users would be surprised by how much the operating system has to offer. "Consumers want USB drivers and digital camera support; but for the enterprise desktop, that is a little bit different -- that area is ripe," he said. "We think that the enterprise desktop market place is much more strategic and has buyers whose needs we can exceed."
An honest admission in line with my experience.
While I've got my laptop booting DOS 6.2, Windows 95 and Windows NT in separate partitions, I've had hell getting any variant of Linux operating, and I've tried four or five on a clean hard disk, using installation options from full auto minimal to "expert". X-Windows had continuous problems with a 1024 X 768 standard LCD display, and performance was sluggish, to say the least.
The MS operating systems even have no trouble with the "Selectbay" interchangeable drives, which include a floppy, a zip drive, a floptical drive, a CD, a CDR and a DVD drive.
But when I can't get the blasted display working properly, my enthusiasm drops very quickly.