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Comment by zimbabwe | Hacker News Reader

Good arguments. Upvoted even though I disagree with many of them.

I've never once had a problem I couldn't solve by a quick search of Ubuntu's forums/documentation and editing the config files myself.

That's a lot harder than what the average computer user wants. When I used Ubuntu, I was terrified of the config files, and I hated forum searching to solve problems. It seemed like such an inelegant solution.

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Yeah that's true, and I definitely think that Ubuntu is trying to move in a more user-friendly direction than traditional Linux mindsets. In any case - what has been your experience with the "troubleshoot" tools in Windows? It's not that I'm arguing the point with you, I really do think they seem easy to use. My only problem, is that it's never actually succeeded in fixing or diagnosing the problem I was having. Am I alone in this?

My experience has been that after a year or so using Ubuntu I am on a learning curve, which was a bit frustrating at first.

My legacy Windows XP install makes me want to bang my head on the wall.

I would have to try Vista/Windows 7 to weigh in. I don't have pleasant Windows experiences at all, but I can't say right now that they haven't become a lot better.

I have to say that Ubuntu's forums and documentation aren't worth hardly anything. The forum is overloaded and there are so many new threads that very few of the threads will ever be touched or answered.

The documentation covers the basics, but it rarely helps if there is a problem.

I had a problem with graphics card issues last year and spent a couple weeks of research before finally finding a way to fix the problem myself. The forums and documentation didn't help.

And I found numerous other people asking the same question but not getting any answer. After I found the solution I posted it on their forum threads.

This is because you come to a rare and frutrating problem. This type of problems are not different on any kind of systems. They are hard to solve and low number of people tackle on them. If the problem having party is not some kind of big corporation or a person having influence over masses, that problem is non existant for the systems' producer.

The thing is, Linux distros, be it ubuntu or any other are bunch of software written all over the world, having no central design policy or architecture, put together. So making a real working and centrally controllable distro is virtually impossible or challenging. These software all have incostencies in their selves or in combinations. so solving most problems in their domains are the way to go. Because of general unix or linux philosophy of having text file based configurations, editkng these to solve most problems is unavoidable. Even gui software for configurations are generating or editing these files.

But diving and getting lost in windows registry is not elegant either..

I never had a big problem in Windows that I could solve at all. Each time I ran into a snag I had to reach for the manual or call support, it ended in either buying new, compatible hardware or reinstalling the machine.

The "troubleshooting" section in Windows help is every bit as useful as horns on a goldfish.

"troubleshoot" is an inelegant solution as well, which is one of the reasons I think ubuntu would be better off avoiding it.

the ui should either work, or tell the user why it doesnt work, troubleshoot is a band aid.

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