I started college about a week back and I’ve made quite a few new friends there. When greeted with the fact that I used Linux, they nearly keeled over. I was hence named a genius and they were completely and totally amazed. To be greeted with that astounding response made me think what kind of an image the Linux community is projecting. Of course there is elitism in every community which doesn’t help at all, but there is this image of Linux being only accessible to computer geeks and geniuses. Is it necessarily true? Some would say no, but you could argue that yes it is. I had to spend literally hours at the command line when I first used Linux with a cable dangling out my window to connect to the router, just so I could get ndiswrapper to work with my wireless drivers. 3d support with my ATI card took another 3 or 4 hours to set up.
There are people who use Linux who advocate to non users the benefits of Linux, but I am reluctant to recommend it to most people for fear of its sheer complexity to set up. I use it because I was forced to when my Windows broke. Through that I got used to it and I began to understand how to do certain things. Had Windows not broken, I would never have attempted to work it. Windows is far too easy to set up, as it sees nearly every device you put in it.
People say Linux is ready for the mainstream. I don’t think so. I still think it needs a few more years.
