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Linux and other free software projects have been frequently criticized for not going far enough in terms of ensuring usability, and the question of Linux's usability compared with Windows or the Macintosh remained hotly debated. For those only familiar with Windows or the Macintosh, using Linux may be perceived difficult at first because many tasks do not work identically, and substantial differences remain in more sophisticated administrative and configuration tasks. It was also easier to find local technical support for Windows or MacOS than for Linux in some places.
However, in comparison to operating systems with a homogenous [[user interface]] such as Windows or Mac OS X, it is difficult to measure the usability as the ease-of-use and target group varies from distribution to distribution. For example, [[Slackware]], a [[source-based distribution]], remains notoriously difficult to install for beginners but remains the distro of choice for many advanced Linux users. Many advanced users find Slackware more "usable" in comparison due to the relative freedom that the nature of the distro allows, in comparison to a more Windows-like distro such as Mandrake. Beginners, on the other hand, find that the freedom that Slackware offers renders simple tasks far too complicated, limiting the distro's usability. A more beginner-friendly distro, such as [[Mandrake]] or [[Linspire]], offers a more guided approach, making it more "usable" in the eyes of beginners, but is perceived by many advanced users as being ''[[bloatware]]'', being filled with too much software rendering it slow and unstable.
<!-- please give a reference showing this is a concern in the real world, not [[original research]] for this article (and it looks like it should be in the distro article anyway): A major point in usability is that most distributions provide only the program version that they shipped with their distribution release. Binaries from newer distribution versions may work but often they won't or there's no newer distribution version. A possible solution could be [[portage]] - a packaging system that builds software very easily from source. However it still doesn't solve the binary problem and doesn´t separate parts of a software. (like foobar, foobar-devel, foobar-docs)
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