Pablo Richards .com

“It only does one t’ing mon.”

I was in a phone conversation with a Phoenix reggae legend. Being a reggae keyboard player in the evenings while also being a project manager at Intel Corp. for 23 years had already led me into many interesting clashes of technology vs. user philosophy, but this sounded like a very unusual computer problem indeed. The famous “DDred,” who is the real deal straight from sunny Jamaica at large in the valley, was telling me that his computer, a tool which had been coined by Andy Grove (former CEO of Intel), as a “swiss-army knife of devices” had failed to the extent that it could only accomplish one single task.

“What do you mean “it only does one thing”?

“I mean it only does one t’ing! This computer, he only go one place, mon! I can’t do email, I can’t go to my website. Computer, he only do one t’ing!”

“OK, D., I’ll take a look.”

He didn’t lie. His computer had been attacked by malware in the guise of a “virus fighting program,” as I’ve seen on so many different Windows machines before. But what I’d never seen before was that instead of the malware just making windows which annoyingly “pop over” everything as is most often the case, this uppity malware had taken complete control of his machine and even changed his desktop to a giant banner for the pirate company software urging you to click the big link in the middle of the page to pay your money for the magic key software that would presumably give you your computer back.

There has to be something better for people who don’t care to fuss with the computers in their lives. People like my mother, who gave up her new laptop for an old Windows 2000 machine, only because the new laptop pestered her about how many “phishing expeditions were attacking her firewall,” and how some guy named “Norton” had been pushing my dear sweet mom for protection money for "virus-protection over the upcoming computing year." Not everyone wants to have to learn how to be a “system admin” to keep the computers running for their families or businesses.

Like a well-aged wine, I see Ubuntu Linux as ready and in prime position to snatch the lion’s share of of the market in family and educational usage away from the “Windoze” juggernaught. Why?

Well, for a few reasons:
1) In the past 10 years, a huge multi-national community of Linux devotees have taken Ubuntu Linux from a highly-secure, powerful, elegant text-based “for nerds” operating system to a user-friendly realization or the Ubuntu model: “Computing for Humans.” The latest version makes most any P4-level PC or Intel-based-Mac feel like it has more under the hood than it actually does, while the smooth animations and transparencies of the Ubuntu interface itself makes the user feel they are running a well configured Win7P installation.