Warp wrote:
> However, most Windows users are equally clueless as well, so it
> doesn't really make much of a difference. They still have to call the
> neighbor's kid or take the machine to the shop.

I think the problem is more that it's harder to find someone with Linux 
expertise living next door. :-)

I will agree I see much less random inexplicable breakage on Linux, even 
with very recent versions of Windows.

And it's really only very recently that Linux has been user-friendly enough 
for this to work.  A couple years ago, my dad called me on the phone asking 
how to center what he wanted to print. Altho I'd never used his brand of 
printer before and I didn't know what program he was trying to print from, I 
confidently walked him thru setting it to centered. I knew it would be 
"file->print setup->page layout->center" basically.

Five years ago (heck, even now between KDE and GNOME) you couldn't even tell 
someone on Linux where to find the menu full of installed programs. You 
wouldn't even be able to say "here's how you open a command-line" for 
example. Let alone what you would have needed to do to help someone with 
Linux back when Win98 was popular.

Don't forget we're all the early adopters here. There's *still* a lot of 
people running Win98 at home.

-- 
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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