Linux is going to take a while to be ready for the mass market, if ever at all. I don’t think developers want to mass-market it.

I don’t think they do either. Doing so would create more widespread complaints on issues they may not be ready to tackle yet. It will eventually get there, but if the userbase remains low they can focus on all the high-priority issues first before diving into the smaller issues.

@Richard – Many of the points you made are valid, but he was looking at it from an average consumers perspective. He didn’t want to go hunt down VLC just to play a media or adjust the mouse sensitivity. And as far as the codecs goes Windows Media Player 11 comes with almost all the codecs you need (including DVD playback) and that’s available through Windows Update. So it’s safe to say that most users would be able to playback almost all media without needing hard-to-find applications. I think that is the point he was trying to make.

Well that may be so but i was basing my view on Windows XP SP2b OEM and that includes only Windows Media Player 9 and no codecs. Realistically average user would find windows hard if it was not pre-configured when bought from the Store

” 1. Install the libdvdread3 package (see Chapter 3, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).
[Note]

You will need to use Synaptic Package Manager to install this package
2. To activate DVD decryption, type the following line into a terminal prompt:

sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread3/install-css.sh

3.To play DVDs with Totem, you will need to install some extra codecs (see the section called “Multimedia Codecs”).

4. However, the Gstreamer framework (used by Totem) does not support menus or subtitles for DVD playback. For this reason, you can install a separate DVD player, Xine, which supports these. To install Xine, install the gxine package from the “Universe” repository (see Chapter 3, Adding, Removing and Updating Applications).

5. You can then open gxine from the Sound & Video menu.”

Doesn’t sound main-stream to me.

WTF…..

* No control panel for adjusting the way the touch pad works
Did your hardware guy take care of making his wares linux compatible??

* Every time the computer awoke from sleep, the volume control software crashed and had to be reloaded
See first

* Codecs had to be downloaded to play audio and video files, and the user is warned that some of the codecs might be “bad” or “ugly”
Did this guy ever hear of VLC or Mplayer

* Several computer reboots were needed to recognize a Kodak camera and Apple iPod, and the iPod had problems synchronizing
Hmmm….iPod…..want the same when it was not there for Windows

* No built-in software for playing DVD’s
VLC player
* Nobody is ultimately responsible for the quality of the product, and open-source developers often have an imperfect feel for how average people use software
Did he ever use firefox

I dont know how much he got from MS for this kind of commenting. Guys I do not trust WSJ anymore eversince they came up with a story that I did comment on in my blog

The problem is, as I had stated before, most of these features that are missing, help.ubuntu.com]'>audio codecs and built in DVD player can’t be included in the package for legal reasons. help.ubuntu.com]'>User have to go out and find these things. Windows and Mac let you watch a DVD without and additional fuss. The same is true about playing an MP3 files.

Until Linux can included these basic and expected features out-of-the-box, it will continue to be a geek only product.

As for the hardware issues, Walt Mossberg was right on the money. Because hardware manufactures don’t provide native Linux support the OS is not ready for the masses.

This is perhaps the correct assessment. But i think things are going to change quickly.Ubuntu is taking rapid strides and will overcome these problems eventually.

You’re definitely right, and hopefully as the big KDE and GNOME releases make their way out we see some big usability improvements.

@100rabh & Richard – Many of the points you made are valid, but he was looking at it from an average consumers perspective. He didn’t want to go hunt down VLC just to play a media or adjust the mouse sensitivity. And as far as the codecs goes Windows Media Player 11 comes with almost all the codecs you need (including DVD playback) and that’s available through Windows Update. So it’s safe to say that most users would be able to playback almost all media without needing hard-to-find applications. I think that is the point he was trying to make.