Stephen wrote:
> I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is 
> sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.

There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the 
"distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.

Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for 
functionality that already works in the distribution.

-- 
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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Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> You make a good case for Linux, there.

  At least for power users, who know what they are doing. I readily admit
that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Stephen wrote:
> > I think that the biggest problem in this situation with windows is 
> > sifting out the rubbish apps that are available.

> There's a lot of crap-ware for linux, too. It just doesn't get into the 
> "distributions," so there's already an impartial vetting function going on.

> Nobody goes roaming around on sourceforge or google looking for 
> functionality that already works in the distribution.

  One difference is also that the user can have an impact on the development
of a distro. You can go to the official forums/mailing lits of the distro
and suggest some improvement or whatever, and there's a good chance that
someone will actually listen and implement it. I have first-hand experience.

  I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
impossible for them to listen to all of them.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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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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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> impossible for them to listen to all of them.

  Rather funny. Reading that again, I notice that someone could mistake
that as me misusing quotes for emphasis, even though I really used them
legitimately, ie. to de-emphasize, ie. to mean "not to be interpreted
literally" (in other words. like: "too popular (well, not really, at least
not from Microsoft point of view)").

  I wonder if the misconception about quotes-can-be-used-for-emphasis has
originated with something like that.

  (Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
emphasis. Cursive is *also* used in literature, especially in articles and
academic texts, to denote things like titles (eg. publications or books).
When cursive is not available, then usually quotes are used for the same
purpose (eg. 'in his book "I, Robot", Asimov presents a grim view of the
future'). Since both cursive and quotes are interchangeable in things like
book titles, maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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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. I readily admit
> that Linux is, in some aspects, rather hard for beginners to approach (even
> though it has got a lot better during the last decade; but there are still
> some rough edges, although in some cases it's not so much Linux's own fault
> as much as companies who have no or poor Linux support).
> 

I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my 
interest. Open Office seemed too much trouble to learn as well. Having 

just getting old.
Hmm! Last week I had to resort to using a BAT file in DOS to rename a 
series of files for an animation.


-- 

Best Regards,
	Stephen

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Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> The only people I've heard *advocating* Linux are system administrators and 
> programmers, or people who are deploying it for price reasons.

  Which is sad, really. If a regular user who only checks his email, surfs
the web from time to time and maybe writes some letters, could be a lot
better off with Linux than with Windows. He wouldn't get the myriads of
adware/spyware, browser toolbars, email viruses, etc, the system would not
get congested with time due to every single legitimate and illegitimate
piece of software installing tons of useless (and sometimes harmful) stuff
everywhere, and the computer would overall be somewhat safer from regular
attempts at hacking (eg. by email worms, rootkits, etc). It would be cheaper
too.

  Some people argue that Linux might be ok as long as there are no problems,
but immediately when some problem happens the newbie user will be completely
clueless about what to do because solving problems in Linux requires more
expertise. 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.

  With Linux it would be much less likely be caused by a spyware or trojan.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Stephen <mca### [at] aoldotcom> wrote:
> I tried Red Hat about 5 years ago but it never really grabbed my 
> interest.

  Not all distros are equally easy to use. And Red Hat in particular is
more or less obsolete now (since they stopped developing it).

  Most people consider OpenSUSE and Ubuntu to be the user-friendliest.
Personally I only have experience of the former.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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Warp wrote:
>   One difference is also that the user can have an impact on the development
> of a distro. You can go to the official forums/mailing lits of the distro
> and suggest some improvement or whatever, and there's a good chance that
> someone will actually listen and implement it. I have first-hand experience.

Yeah, I've fixed 3 or 4 bugs in widely-used packages too. (Tcl and Wings3D 
both spring to mind.)

>   I don't see Microsoft roaming through the millions of messages
> Microsoft-related newsgroups and online forums probably have, and
> implementing people's suggestions. Windows is "too" popular, with "too
> many" users, and it's owned by a single company, so it's basically
> impossible for them to listen to all of them.

I'm not sure of that. The whole ribbon toolbar thing was based on user 
feedback. A lot of it is automatically collected, including crash dumps and 
just usage information. They have millions of people telling them where they 
first look for "right-justify text in an excel cell" for example. It's a 
level of data-collection you'd have a hard time supporting in Linux, 
particularly for free. (Except maybe specific products, like TiVo, where the 
company is making money selling hardware as well.)

I never heard of any free Linux products doing stuff like focus groups, 
either. You often get in Linux that which the geeks think is most useful, at 
the expense of what clueless people can handle. Or you get Linux programs 
using the kinds of interfaces that are already well-established in Windows 
or MacOS, like drop-down window menus, toolbars, border decorations, etc.

It's difficult for MS to pay attention to specific individual users, sure, 
but I think they do a better job of implementing what the majority want, 
mainly because it's in MS's best financial interests to implement what the 
majority want in most cases. (Excluding the majority wanting everything for 
free, etc of course.) And they have the money to pay people to do that sort 
of research, when otherwise it would just cost too much for a free program.

(Of course, there's some free software like Open Office that was essentially 
created as a loss leader, where a lot of work went into it that a normal 
self-motivated nerd wouldn't have bothered with.)

-- 
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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Warp wrote:
>   (Another theory I have is this: Cursive is often used in literature for
> emphasis. 

The way I learned it, it's not "cursive" but "italic."  ("Cursive" purely 
means hand-written words all strung together rather than as block writing. 
I'm sure you know what I mean.)

That nit aside, I was also taught that quotes go around articles, but book 
titles (and foreign words) are in italic, as is emphasis. And that's 
indicated in handwriting by underlining.

Thus, _this_ word will probably show as _italic_ on your screen, if you're 
using something that does things like make *this* word bold.

> maybe someone got confused and thought that cursive and quotes
> are also interchangeable when denoting emphasis.)

I tend to believe it's just laziness and ignorance over an honest mistake 
someone was trying not to make. But then I'm cynical. :-)

-- 
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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