Really, not one useful task? What about web browsing, email, PDF viewing, OpenOffice apps (word processor, spreadsheet, database, slide presentation), media/video playing, music playing, photo editing, basic HTML editing, etc.? All these tasks can be done immediately with a new installation of Ubuntu, and probably most of the other Linux distros.
I hardly consider any of those productive to what I do.
I have office installed, but only for <reading> word documents. Actually I've had this copy of Office 2003 for ages and I can't recall a single time when it actually was worth the cost. This drives home another important point, which is more against windows then Linux (on account of cost associations) many people forget that Microsoft Word is not, strictly speaking, for personal use. It was designed for <professional> documents. I've seen people make silly little memos and notices and "lost pet" type stuff in word, and honestly that is completely and utterly ridiculous. Wordpad would suite the purposes of most people but they have been conditioned to believe that somehow they need Word for all word processing, and then they go on and on about how they will do their budgets in Excel and then you go to use it on their PC and find it's hasn't even been installed since they haven't used it. Is that cost effective?
<productive> in my context, for my purposes, has to do with the creation of Win32 programs and ActiveX components that I use in those programs. I believe I'm in a *censored* of a better position to judge what is and is not "productive" and what my purposes are then anybody else. I realize that Linux, to the average person, has everything they need, but forgive my conceit but I'm <not> the average person- that is why I specifically qualified my statement with multiple instances of the "I". If I had said anybody, or something along those lines, then your response would be perfectly justified, but as I said, I really don't see how a third party can dictate what is and is not productive or useful to me.
Just because Linux has the applications installed by default doesn't necessarily make it any better. Slackware has a full DVD of crap on it but that doesn't really make the OS any better. Any Operating system can do stuff like basic HTML editing out of the box, am I to judge an operating system based on the quality of the built in applets?
people say the windows utilities suck. Well, consider for a moment that, at least for the most part, they have to. If a product included with the operating System serves the same function as, say, (completely random, I swear (heh)) Netscape Navigator, let's say, Internet Explorer, they might incite claims of anti-competitiveness and abusing their position. So it's no wonder that notepad still sucks. there are commercial products (as well as free ones) that suit this purpose but if MS were to create something that was genuinely useful in the same way as those applications they would be attracting a lot of attention to themselves. They learned to stop providing people with useful applets long ago.
yes, you can perform "useful" tasks with Ubuntu, or whatever, Linux distro, but unless the experience is <better> then what I'm already doing I really see no reason to change the way I'm doing things now. and Based on the fact that they continually tout that there will be "no more DLL *censored*" in Linux without admitting that their Library management is about a million times worse then windows 3.1 is what I find atrocious. OK. side by side usage of Libraries leaves a lot to be desired. This is a fact It can be remedied, it can be fixed. But to actually try to use their weakness and say it's a strength over something in windows that actually <does> work better is simply ridiculous and from my perspective really brings into question the experience of the people who would make the claim. At the same time, even though there are issues with something as down-level and important as management of include libraries there are about a kazillion different text editors one can choose for Any linux distro. And while I have no problem with variety, maybe the next time a linux dev decides, "I know, I'll make a text editor" maybe they'll take a look at the default repository and actually make something new.
This brings up another interesting point- the package manager. It sucks. a common rebuttal to this point is that "windows doesn't have a package manager". Which is pretty silly.
Really is it better to have something that is broken and only half works or not have it at all? is it OK to overwrite your library files and replace them with new versions even though it breaks compatibility with some other program? Not to mention every single distribution apparently decides that the kazillion other repository and package formats aren't good enough and have to define their own, which probably only differs from the others in that it's header has it's own name on it. For a free, open source OS there is a *censored* of a lot of name branding.
Open source. this is another point. somehow this is inherently good. It isn't. if I open source an empty code file does it somehow make it useful? No. If i open source broken, useless code, does that somehow forgive the fact that it sucks? No. Of course, Linux is neither an empty code file nor is it broken or useless, but my point is that "Open Source" is not an incentive to the average user. What does "Open Source" mean to them? How does it help them? In either case they still need somebody else to change the code for them, wether it be a commercial program or an Open Source Project. "Open Source" is only meaningful to programmers.
Additionally, many people say "It's open source, so you can change it" Which is purely evidence that they have never tried. It's an operating System. It's not a simple task to either change or compile. You'd need to have a pretty deep understanding of basic OS theory just to read and understand the code.
Thankfully, while Ubuntu still has this tendency to footnote that it's Open Source, it's the first distro to actually put Linux on the map. before Ubuntu barely anybody knew what Linux was. many people thought it was a virus or something, or that only hackers used it. So, in that sense, it has certainly changed the face of Linux for the better.
But it still needs reconstructive surgery and major organ transplants before it can properly compete with windows. Pushing the whole "Open Source" thing only goes so far, until people actually start to try to edit it and realize that it's no more user servicable then commercial Operating Systems. For the average user, it doesn't matter if the OS is Machine code (windows) or wether it's C, it's still code to them. So using that as a "selling point" to Aunt Martha is rather silly.
The major advantage is that it's Free. It doesn't always reduce the Total Cost of ownership, but for a new or relatively new user, it comes pretty close. if somebody is already semi-familiar with windows it can actually make them think negatively about Linux- almost everything they learned about windows, folders, dragging, so forth, might need changing. and the fact that some of these things work and some don't only adds to the frustration. It's a paradigm shift, and a paradigm is best served as a single course, not with other Paradigms, otherwise you get cross-contamination, which just results in confusion.
The very same thing happens when people switch from Mac to windows, or windows to mac, or mac to linux, or linux to mac (heh, that's funny)- everything is different, and people tend to try to interpret what they see in one environment based on what they know of another. When it works, they feel they are learning. When it doesn't, they can often feel stupid. It's neither the Operating System's, nor the user's fault, but rather human nature. It's like having to deal all your life with doors swing outward to the right and being transported to a place where they swing out to the left.
I could run and develop in VB6 via WINE, but I mean... c'mon, that's pretty dumb. And between the choice between gedit and my copy of EditpadPro, I think I'll go for the built in FTP support for developing my website, and Paint Shop Pro for images. I'm not about to restructure the way I do everything just because I'm intrigued by Linux. Sure, I can use the tools and applications provided by Ubuntu and most linux distributions, but A:) even if they <have> the same features as what I'm used to, is there something <wrong> with what I'm used to? Is using windows inherently wrong by default to a degree that I should revamp my usage patterns to fit a new OS? Sure, I can use GIMP for image editing, but I'd much rather spend 5 minutes in PSP, using tools and commands I am familar with then learn a new user interface. I mean, sure, Paint Shop Pro has a few UI faults but at least it wasn't designed by a bunch of different people all with different goals with the end result of a completely confusing UI that ends up being a testament to bad design. The problem with Linux is it has embraced the programmatic ideology that Options+Power=usability, when in fact the opposite is true. a Linux-Based desktop can only be useful to the general population when it let's go of such concepts and stops identifying as a "distribution" and instead identifies as an "operating System" otherwise it's just another shade of blue in a rainbow.
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