Warp wrote:
> Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
>> You make a good case for Linux, there.
> 
>   At least for power users, who know what they are doing. 

Windows really is *not* that easy for people who don't know what they're 
doing. How many horror stories of data lost because it was never backed up 
have you heard? Complaints about Windows getting slower and slower, or the 
wireless just randomly not working?  Much of that is because the 
non-power-user is screwing it up, or Dell or HP are loading the machine up 
with crapware (like "wireless managers" and such) that makes it flakey.

The stuff from MS is actually rather robust. I've never had a "preinstalled" 
Windows that I didn't wipe and install from Microsoft media after tearing my 
hair out for a few hours trying to get it to run smoothly. And Vista is the 
first Windows I've had install smoothly (probably because it's 64-bit, and 
hence all the drivers come from Microsoft).  The terrors of commercialism in 
software. :-)

My neighbor can't be convinced that it's not necessary to open IE to get to 
her email. She doesn't understand that the "read my mail" button in IE is 
the same program that's already on her desktop and in the start menu. She 
has no understanding of the computer, doesn't understand to check the cable 
modem is plugged in if she doesn't get connectivity, has no idea why she has 
12 different "toolbars" from Yahoo, AOL, Dell, google, etc in IE or how to 
get rid of them, etc.  I don't think whether it's Windows or Linux would 
make any difference at all to her - it's all cheat-sheets saying which 
buttons to press to accomplish each task, and any tiny deviation and she's 
lost.

The next step up?  I think (say) sales people who understand how to work the 
machine could probably learn Linux as easily. I think where Linux falls 
down, tho, is the lack of commercial-grade software. Accountants want 
quickbooks and turbotax. Salesmen want Dynamics or some other CRM software. 
Graphic artists don't think GIMP will substitute for Photoshop. Etc.

The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and 
programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons. (Or both, 
like "cloud" applications.)   But even places where the product runs on 
Linux, they tend to do the development on Windows machines, because that's 
where Outlook and Excel and CRM programs and Quickbooks and all that sort of 
stuff runs.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Human nature dictates that toothpaste tubes spend
   much longer being almost empty than almost full.

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