Ubuntu “Mania” On The BBC

The forthcoming release of Karmic Koala has gotten a lovely full page article on the BBC tech website €“ showing the increased traction our mammalian monikered OS is gaining in the €œmainstream€.
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It's a worthy little read over your morning coffee in anticipation of the Karmic in just 2 days time, but try not to spit any out when you spot the odd glaring error€¦

Full Article: Ubuntu readies the Karmic Koala

€œ€¦I struggled to work out how I would organise photos, music and video with this system.€

Th next article comes a few days after the BBC's €œtechnology correspondent€ Rory Cellan-Jones mentioned Ubuntu on a BBC breakfast morning segment regarding the Windows 7 launch.
His description of Ubuntu was a bit naive and ill-informed: -

RCJ: “There’s something called ‘Ubuntu’ which is launched next week. It’s a whole sort of little community of enthusiasts building operating systems for absolutely nothing and trying to persuade us that we don’t need to be in with the big boys but actually most computer users frankly they don’t want to bother with that sort of stuff they want something that’s there…”
BT: “…that everyone else uses..”
RCJ: “Yes”

Canonical sent him over a netbook loaded with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Continuing his naivety he seems to assume this is what all Ubuntu versions looks like €“ comparing the netbook €œsidebar€ to Windows 7's Taskbar and Mac OS X's dock. Err€¦ ok.

He goes on to predict that Ubuntu will remain a niche product and that Android will bring Linux to the mainstream PC audience. (He's so good at his job he's not heard of Chrome OS yet €“ which is what Google has designed for this task!)

I do somewhat feel sorry for him. He's obviously somewhat out of his depth as a tech journalist €“ exemplified by his warnings that flash isn't installed by default (it's not on Windows, either) and how he needed to get a Canonical employee to help him install it.

His aptitude somewhat further takes a battering when he proclaims €œI struggled to work out how I would organise photos, music and video with this system.€

You'd think the 'music' icon under €œSound and Video€ and €œF-Spot photo manager€ under 'Graphics' would give it away€¦

If you want to give your eyes a good workout via plenty of eye-rolling, you can read his full €œanalysis€ over @ http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/technology/2009/10/24_hours_with_ubuntu.html

(I'd stay away from the 'comments' section if you want to remain calm due to such amazing insights into Linux such as: -

€œLinux has a fanatical anti-Microsoft following, but they can’t actually make their product work any better. Compared to mature consumer operating systems like Windows there are too many shortcomings, too many things that don’t ‘just work.’€ )

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  • Dominick

    Good to see Ubuntu making its way into the main stream, although if this is any indication it will suffer misconceptions and assumptions.

  • Selfier

    ugh it hurts how ignorant people can be, reading his articles is giving me a headache….so much anger is building inside of me, I got zero tolerance for ignorance.

    Anyways good to see Ubuntu getting a mainstream eye even if it’s not the best kind of eye…

  • Mohan

    I was very much surprised to see it on BBC, and with the new coming out that Canonical is going to limit the free CDs means Ubuntu is getting more and more popular! :)

  • http://www.abbashalai.com/ abbas

    i’m a huge fan of Ubuntu and been using it for four years now, but maybe our view is wrong about operating systems in general. maybe the OS isn’t as simplistic and easy to use for everyone as we make it out to be. understandably this person didn’t seem like they tried very hard to make things work or research about the OS, but why should they? an operating system shouldn’t have to be researched, it should be intuitive and if the “dumb blonde” can’t figure it out, then the UI team should go back to the drawing board.

    • http://seph-vii.myopenid.com/ Seph

      How much more intuitive than “Application->Ubuntu Software Centre” can it get?

      I generally agree with you though, Windows isn’t exactly intuitive for first-time users, nor is OSX.

  • http://ndrw.me AndrewNoNumbers

    Silly mainstream media! But at least they misinterpret Windows too.

  • Anonymous

    It’s disappointing that Rory Cellan Jones didn’t dedicate enough time to get to know Ubuntu. I know that he’s going to give a more in-depth review of Ubuntu sometime this week but first impressions matter to people scanning for reviews such as the BBC Technology website, and I also hope that there aren’t any comparisons made with Windows O/S.

    I’d also like the BBC programme Click to dedicate sometime to reviewing Ubuntu, all the shows I’ve seen of Click not once has mentioned it.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      I used to watch Click when i was a bit younger and my misconceptions about Linux stemmed from there. They would always mention it as an afterthought but add something like “…if you can get it to run.”

  • Ben

    My eyes have their own washboard abs from the rolling…

    I wonder why he had so much difficulty getting a Linux version of Audacity. He already mentioned having found the Software Centre…

    I can at least take comfort in the knowledge that I benefit from Ubuntu.

  • Claus

    No wonder linux isn’t moving fast if people is reading that “article”…..

    “When will they ever learn…..”