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Netbook Return Rates Much Higher For Linux Than Windows
ivoras writes "An interview with MSI's director of US Sales, Andy Tung, contains this interesting snippet: "We have done a lot of studies on the return rates and haven't really talked about it much until now. Our internal research has shown that the return of netbooks is higher than regular notebooks, but the main cause of that is Linux. People would love to pay $299 or $399 but they don't know what they get until they open the box. They start playing around with Linux and start realizing that it's not what they are used to. They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store. The return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks.'"
Well, duh.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
And are they selling the returned notebooks at a big discount?
Seriously, put some videos on there that explain how to do common tasks. Tasks that are better on linux than on windows. (Like finding/installing cool toys/software/games). Make the videos right there on the desktop. Once consumers find out they can do the things they want, and easily, they will like it.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999
I've had two netbooks so far, and on both, the Linux installations sucked. One came with Xandros, the other with SuSE. Both were poorly installed, neither of them updated correctly over the network, and neither of them was properly adapted to the device (screen, keyboard, etc.). If I hadn't been able to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, I would have returned the machines myself.
RTFA, and unlike the submitter, you'll see that the interviewers point out that MSI offer a poorly configured version of Linux.
I wonder what it would cost someone like Microsoft to have MSI spike the competition.
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
Of course the return rate is higher! Linux is NOT READY FOR THE DESKTOP! You can't buy off-the-shelf software for it at Best Buy and it's hard to use. People buy things based on the price tag without doing their research first. Most of the time, they can't even get their microwave oven to stop flashing 12:00. What makes you think they're going to want to read an extremely lengthy linux user manual?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
Just put them on the top shelf, since the kind of people who obviously don't read the box and think installing Windows hard will be too lazy to reach them.
Make the free, ad-less, download-able games, aspect of Linux, a more prominent part of the desktop and I suspect there will be fewer returns.
How many more years will slashdot have an off-by-one error on your Score in your profile?
Are stupid.
Bot Assisted Blogging
No wonder people find it kinda... different.
Esp. with tech stuff, the lingo matters, gringo.
My eeepc was a whole lot more useful once I got a different distro on it. Average Joe isn't going to feel comfortable installing linux on his own, editing boot records and reconfiguring this and that for three hours before the computer becomes useful. They want to hit a button and have a useful operating system in front of them.
That said, I've bought three eee's, one for me, my brother, and my wife. I've installed ubuntu and configured everything before giving them to the others, and they haven't had a problem since. My wife, who won't use windows because she's not used to it (she grew up with macs), says she likes ubuntu - I suspect her story would be different if she had to spend hours looking up instructions how to install it.
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Games! Good one, sir.
3laws: No freebies, no backsies, GTFO.
According to Amazon the linux version is an 8.9" screen whereas the Windows XP version is a 10".
If the Linux version is a gimped version then it's not a fair comparison.
Goes a long way. People ( for better or worse ) have been trained for over a decade to deal with windows. ( the mac crowd is smaller and doesn't count in this case )
Being able to go down to the local super store and buy the stuff you see on TV and have it work is also important.. First time you buy that new shiny game and find it wont work due to that funny OS, back it goes.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
But Windows XP is dead. Microsoft wants you using Vista, and Vista is one of the hardest OSes to learn after using XP. Microsoft will soon enough ban OEM installs of XP on netbooks, so this talk of XP vs. Linux is mostly useless.
People come to me all the time, asking for help with setting up their wi-fi or trying to figure out some other off-the-wall issue with Vista. And I tell them, hell if I know... I wish they'd switch to Ubuntu. It is no more difficult to learn than Vista.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
People don't give a rip about the operating system. They just want WoW to work, they want to view their documents and they want their online pr0n.
In addition, the hardware community is so blockheaded in that they'll support OSX (Unix) but not Linux.
Case in point - I setup my father-in-law's wife with a new Dell Linux (openSUSE 10.3/KDE) system a few months back. Her only needs are eBay, email (AOL) and documents. Due to the various lack of support - both from their internet provider and hardware - I"m going down to their house today and downgrading them to Vista.
She can work fine with about 80% of her needs, but unfortuantely, the other 20% isn't there.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
People don't want to be trained. They want to be sold. The problem with Linux on the consumer desktop is nobody is selling it to them. Apple marketing makes a different machine cool and worth investing the time to learn. Maybe treating the netbook like a web/mail appliance instead of a small computer would help manufacturers do a better job of satisfying the customer. What are some stats from other netbook makers?
MSI's install of linux is a piece of garbage. They barely made it run and it's junk. now they are bitching that their half assed work causes returns?
How come the ASUS eee flys off shelves where it's available and people that own them that are not techies love them in their linux install?
Oh wait, ASUS did not half ass the linux install. Ahhhh.
It must be linux's fault then.
The story headline needs to be changed... "MSI does crappy work again and bitches about it shifting blame to XXX."
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
All in all, it's amazing how few returns there are for linux - note how the representative says that the return rate is four times higher. Unless the machines are failing all over, and they aren't or we'd be hearing about it, the return rates are at worst a few per cent of all machines sold. More likely the actual rates are less than a per cent.
If even one per cent of Windows customers return the machine, that means that the Linux return rate is four per cent. In other words, 3 per cent of customers decide that Linux is a defect they weren't told about, and 1 per cent return it for other reasons, and 96 per cent are more or less happy with the product. That's a success in my book.
Of course, some of the 96 per cent will replace Linux with a pirated Windows install, or get a friend to do it, but even that won't change the conclusion much. It makes sense since most people are happy with web surfing, email, a music player and basic office stuff. Linux provides all that in a usable package.
What they mean to say is that these customers visited pron sites and couldn't install the "codecs" that were offered.
The OS may be no more difficult to learn (for everyday use; if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu), but then you also have the added learning curve of replacing every single application except possibly Firefox, if they weren't using IE before.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Where are the half price (whatever) cheap refurb units being sold for these netbooks then?
People don't want to learn something new concerning computers? I am SHOCKED, absolutely shocked. Of course, this may be due to MSI's crappy version of Linux (according to other /.ers). I think an Ubuntu install or some other easy to use distro would do the trick. I'd go with SuSE with KDE 4.1.2 at the moment, but when KDE 4.2 comes out, SuSE's backports will become much less valuable.
SSC
rather than blaming the users who "don't want to spend time to learn it". Customers buy your product because they need it, but few would learn it the hard way without well-organized, easy-to-follow documentation. Invest in supporting and documenting your own product and users will be happier, not angrier.
Colorless green Cthulhu waits dreaming furiously.
If we compare overall return rate we could notice that Windows computers are more often returned than Linux computers.
Reason might be that people do not know what they get with Windows laptop. They get under-power hardware with software which actually requires more power.
I recently purchase the cheap Dell Ubuntu laptop, for my kid to use at school, with the expectation that everything would work out-of-the-box. But of course the wireless network device didn't. As it turns out, it did have support built into the kernel, it required that an alias be configured in /etc/modprobe.d.
If you want the Caribou Barbies of the world to be able to use Linux, then little things like this need some attention.
I never needed a manual I chose to read Wiki explanations for specific tasks.
I'll assume that your run-on sentence was intended to have a semicolon after "manual". But I don't know how wiki explanations can be so useful if you don't already have networking up.
but after I told [my brother] the things he needed to know everything works just fine.
Most people buying netbooks don't have access to you. Who will train them?
If you drive your old car for a couple of years and the new one has the AC knob in a different place will you sweat?
Mac OS and GNOME put Cancel (brake) on the left and OK (gas) on the right. Windows and some other environments do it the other way around.
Is anyone surprised?
I personally know a few people that went out and bought EEEs that ran Xandros, were marvelled for the first few days, then tried to use bluetooth usb sticks which didn't get recognized, xandros' kde 3.4 obex support is useless so there's no transferring files to the EEE, tried to use external (better) webcams and they didn't work, there's no installing yahoo messenger and pidgin didn't support video/audio, and a whole range of problems. So they returned the linux EEEs and bought the XP preinstalled ones..
Three hours of doing that may be fun to you, but as you point out - not for most. I wouldn't find it fun at all.. I do like tinkering with my computer, but I prefer tinkering with it from a known-good state, instead of a known-iffy state; that way if I get the thing in an unknown-fubar state, I can go back to known-good instead of back to known-iffy.
That's why I love the projects sprouting up that offer CD/DVD images of distributions that you just pop into the drive, give it a run, and if you like it - install it on the machine permanently. It's not quite 'out-of-the-box', and if you don't have another machine then the lack of "Order your CD/DVD online!" is annoying. But it's much, much, better than messing about with either the crappy pre-installed stuff or a generic distro that you'd still have to tweak left and right.
Alright, couple things. Yes. It is true that the vast majority of the general public don't want to learn how a computer works.
But I see some fault by manufacturers too. Couple things.
Stop shipping laptops with relatively unknown "Lets evade the MS Tax" Linux distros with little support or documentation. This whole "Get a Linux computer so we can pirate Windows" thing has gotta stop.
From now on, contract with the BIG BOYS in Linux, Red Hat, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Suse. No more gOS. no more *insert Bizzare distro no one has ever heard of here* distro.
Make sure all your drivers for your cards work and can survive things like Kernel patches.
Stop shipping broken configurations. If my Screen can support 1200x800, it better not be set to 1024x768.
Stop Advertising Linux as "Almost Windows" or "Sort of Windows" - Advertise Linux as - Linux. Put a big Penguin sign up next to the row of Linux Laptops, and say "These are Linux Laptops." and if they are
Install Wine on Linux Laptops. Show customers that they can take their Windows applications with them where Applicable.
So, since I know what I need, I buy an Apple, add XP to it, and go on my merry way.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
For what it's worth, your experience might be an exception. I recently acquired a couple of Inspiron 1525N's at work, and all of their wireless adapters worked perfectly out of the box.
To be fair, though, the volume control didn't work, and I had to unload the winmodem driver to get it working.
Karma: Terrifying (mostly affected by atrocities you've committed)
The average guy takes Linux like a 2 series OS, that is hard and doesn't have their programs of choice... They don't want to learn it. Just the name scares them.
Moreover, some of these consumers don't even realise that a PC can be shipped with something that is not windows.
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
is that most of these stupid people are probably going to vote for Obama. Stupid is as stupid does.
Their Linpus light (a spin of Fedora) sucks less than the other netbook Linuxes, Fedora repos are already configured, you can install anything you want throught yum, etc.
Granted, it's not perfect, but, as an Ubuntu fanboy, the fact I'm still keeping it after two months tells something, I guess.
Why there is 2x "os" tag? Or for the love of god, separate them properly with commas
Mock stupid people.
I've just bought an Acer Aspire, and I'm a bit surprised at how much trouble it can be to get the built in hardware to work. The audio doesn't work on the webcam software. Why? Why not fix it before you ship it, or use software which works out of the box. I'll just load up the browser. Firefox 2? Huh? I want Firefox 3 - hasn't there been a lot of work on the html engine, and security fixes? It must be easy to upgrade right? Wrong. A lot of the supplied apps oddly need to use libraries which are part of Firefox 2 but not 3, so you have to do a little nerdy initiation ritual to get them working again once Firefox 3. Why? Why not ship with Firefox 3? Ubuntu 8.4 does. How hard can this be? The UK Acer site doesn't even work properly - missing images and hard to locate information. I think these devices are selling despite, and not because, of the support and marketing of Acer (I have no real experience of the Asus models). It's no wonder that people are having problems.
It's a console, dammit - you're selling loads of identical boxes - it's not like Acer has to support different types of Acer (other than the choice of hard drive or solid state drive). The supplied OS is a bizarre crippled version of an old version of Fedora. I don't understand why they didn't ship a modern Ubuntu, for example - I can't believe they'd find it hard to locate developers who'd happily help customize it a little for quick booting (fixed hardware so no need to spend time every boot looking for networks, raids, etc etc which will never be present for 99% of users). It turns out that it's trivial to install the current `desktop` Ubuntu on it, but again, this isn't something which most Linux newbs are going to be able to do. Doing so, however, means you're going to me much more likely to obtain help from the Linux community than if you try and get help for Fedora 8 (crippled retro edition).
This is a perfect opportunity for Linux enthusiasts and journalists to make the case for an easy transition to Linux. If this story is true then it's looking like it's being wasted.
It's like the answers to half the problems (except those that don't understand it's not Windows) is to install the Ubuntu Netbook remix. Instead there's usually some wierd distro like gOS, Linpus or whatever coming as preinstalls. I thought it was the same thing back when Wal-Mart would sell Linux PCs with Linspire. Why is it they pick these oddball distros? Is it because these are the "business partners" that talk the right talk with the vendors? Why not partner with the popular distro with a huge userbase, community and experience making the already popular product work on your hardware? Does Canonical want such a huge chunk of cash for doing it? Or is there some other reason here I'm missing? I just don't see the rationality behind what they're doing.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
i remember the first time i use windows. version 3.11 it was. i didn't even know how i need to press alt tab to go to mixer apps for turning down a MID file screaming. going from DOS to win requires learning. people now got lucky as for linux at least the interface not as bad as win3.11 :)
but hey, some people feel better to depart with more money and got married with microsoft.. well, that's their choice.. that's why there is an XP option for netbook
fvck b3ta!
I'd love to see the numbers that they used to make the statement that the return rate is at least four times higher for Linux netbooks than Windows XP netbooks. Compare those numbers with the number of sales of netbooks running Linux vs Windows.
If they're selling 4 times the number of Linux netbooks as Windows ones, you'd expect the return rate to be 4 times as high. It's easy to draw misleading conclusions from data, and present those as fact.
Have you ever run an apt-get dist-upgrade against the out-of-the-box ASUS repositories? They had some real blunders in those updates including tools stop working, icons disappearing, etc. I haven't bothered to patch for a while so hopefully they've got their not half-assed Linux install sorted out.
I'll probably install Ubuntu on mine when I stop using it for a kitchen computer / photo viewer.
They don't want to spend time to learn it so they bring it back to the store.
People have no problem learning how to use a phone or PDA, some of which already use Linux, people have no trouble using TiVO, which uses Linux. People can figure out how to operate games consoles, portable media players, etc... all of which are becoming increasingly complex, and some of which use Linux. Even in the context of desktop computing, people have no trouble learning to use Macs... From a usability perspective, users shouldn't even need to know what OS they're running, let alone "learn" how to use it.
Many users have no qualms about blowing away desktop PC and reinstalling. The same cannot be said for laptops.
Desktops are typically pieced together from standard hardware components. Mouse, Keyboard, Monitor, x86-based chipset. All these things are supported out of the box for Windows (and Linux). Even in the worst case scenario, the user would still have the VGA graphics and a mouse and keyboard for input.
But laptops are put together using all sorts of specialized hardware. Touch panel input. Scrolling zone on the touch panel. LCD backlight drivers. Specialized keyboards. Built-in wifi. Assuming that the Windows (or Linux) disk comes with the correct drivers pre-packaged is dangerous. You may be left with a laptop in which half the hardware is not working because it didn't get the correct drivers installed during setup.
It's safer to assume that the restore CD contains the correct drivers and simply backup from that. It also means having to go through and uninstall all the crap bundled in there. But even that is difficult to do since you never know if the bundled program is something critical (like audio or DVD).
Add to this that you may be swapping out the OS for something almost completely foreign, and you have set your users up for severe disappointment and given them nowhere to turn unless you provide them exactly what they want up front. They don't have any option except to return the laptop if they are not satisfied with it.
Get a GNU blow-job and shut-the-byteboyz-fuck-up. You're a stain and a loud, drifting noiz. Get on the melting iceberg and drift away.
Back in the '80s and early '90s, people coped perfectly well with competing computers and operating systems. Sure, an Amiga was a bit different from an Atari, which was a bit different from a PC, which was a bit different from a Mac, which was a bit different from an Archimedes... but so what? People coped, just like they cope with the way every washing machine or DVD player today has a different interface. When you started using computers, you became computer literate, just like everyone's more or less washing-machine-literate and DVD-player-literate. And once you're literate in a technology, you can learn to use any form of it relatively easily.
What the Windows monoculture has done is to destroy computer literacy among most users. Now, instead of learning to use a computer, people are trained to use Microsoft Windows. Instead of learning about launching applications and using word processors, they're trained to click on the big button at the bottom left of the screen that says "start", then to click where it says "Microsoft Word". And so as soon as that button turns into a picture of a foot at the top left of the screen, and the icon they're looking for says "Word Processor", they're left bewildered and uncomfortable.
Of course, this has now bitten Microsoft too: it's one reason why Vista and Office 2007 are so unpopular. (Semantics nazis: does that count as irony?)
If 1 in 25 is angry or dissatisfied enough to return the device, and assuming that only 1 in 10 dissatisfied ever go through with the return, then you are looking at almost half the Linux version customers having a bad experience with their netbook.
Same calculation only yields about 10 in 100 users as truly dissatisfied.
More Driver Manufacturers should go the DKMS route. Like in the case of Nvidia's driver. It has an open source component, and a closed source component. The Open Source Component is a Kernel SHIM that recompiles against the Kernel. Whenever DKMS detects that the Kernel has changed, the DKMS recompiles just the SHIM for that one reboot. This is a decent solution to that problem, but the distros have to pick it up.
Step by Step Guides!
I think some distro for netbooks are sux realy, netbooks are a great chance to linux be wide uses, so put a "start" button like gnome and menu Programs and touche! all people dont will have any diffcult for use that
I have an eeePC900 which has been very good for the use I originally intended: to watch movies in the bus. I commute a bit less than an hour each way, so I watch one movie per day. bittorrent+eePC is all I need to forget the traffic conditions.
There's a business model here that no company seems to catch.
1) sell a cheap computer with adequate software. Asus fails, their repository is ridiculous.
2) sell media at reasonable prices. I'd never pay $15 for a movie, and renting DVDs is a hassle. I'd be ready to pay $1 or $2 to download a 700MB mpeg, why don't the media companies want to sell it to me?
3) Profit!
I'd pay for a *system* that solves this specific need, give me entertainment during my daily bus ride. Other people would be willing to pay for other uses.
Asus has been very shortsighted, they see themselves as a hardware seller, they don't want to offer anything more. The eeePC doesn't even come with Gimp, for instance. Another convenient use for the eeePC is to get photos from my camera's SD card, I feel it's more convenient than plugging the USB cable. But then I want to crop the pictures, enhance this or that, and the eeePC lacks a decent image editor.
I just got it last week, so I'm still exploring the possibilities. One alternative would be to find a safe way to add Debian repositories to get software, another would be to install Xubuntu. I'm sure it will work well in the end, but all this wouldn't be necessary if Asus had gone to the trouble to set up a decent repository.
If someone knows how to do "common tasks" with Windows, where's the incentive to go to the hassle of being re-educated just to learn how to do the same things in Linux?
The only real incentive to switch operating systems is that the new system allows you to do something the old one doesn't.
Would you buy a toaster that required watching a training video before you could use it?
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I bought a linux version of the Acer Aspire One, and I loved it at first. It was an RPM based distribution using XFCE, and although I'm used to aptitude-based package management, I've got no qualms with using yum.
However, I bloody well couldn't, could I? The manufacturers had installed some of their own RPM packages before sending out the laptops, many of which had dependencies on other packages. I couldn't bloody update my system because these packages weren't on the central RPM repositories for fedora etc., and there were countless conflicts. Their proprietry RPMs required firefox, so I couldn't update firefox because that would require interfacing with these RPMs, which weren't there. I couldn't update ANY fucking packages, my distribution was useless, unless I forced removals and forced installs of new RPMs, but then all the conflicts had to be sorted out manually.
I've ended up putting Xubuntu on it with XFCE, but it's far less responsive because you loose the intelligent optimisation that Acer etc, put into it, and installing it requires making bootable keydrives etc., and loads of optimisations to the SSD, swap etc.
Why the hell the manufacturers don't just use Ubuntu (I've heard Dell have the sense too, at least), I do not know.
Stupid.
More for the rest of us then, I suppose.
If you don't know what you're doing, you can't make mistakes.
Are you making up the 1% & 4% numbers?
The average rate of returns for consumer electronics in the USA is 15-20%.
Then assuming 20% return rates for Windows netbooks, it will translate
to 80% return rate for Linux netbooks.
I returned my eeepc. The funny thing is that I returned it because I loved it so much that I decided to invest in the more expensive version since I was using it so much.
So I returned the eeepc and one month later went and bought the newer faster one.
It is probably "power users" who are returning these. Not people who just want their web browser to work and write letters with the word processor and little else.
Not geeks who would know what they want in terms of OSes.
People who know Windows, and MS Office well, but do not actually understand at an abstract level that can be re-applied to other OSes and apps. From people with a memorised sequence of muse clicks for hundreds of tasks, to people who write apps in VBA and Excel.
They should have just picked a good distro and made an alternative that could use its repositories, I think these Linux distros included in he netbooks are so horribly, intentionally crippled that would scare even the most adventurous user. Either way, my 4G Asus eee improved a lot when I managed to install "ubuntu eee", it was upgraded from what basically was a brick to a very capable computer, I can actually program in that...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Thats more than just a little incompetent on the part of Dell, I am wondering why they didn't ask cannonical for help in tailoring ubuntu so it did all work out of the box.
I would love to see an interview with Mark Shuttleworth and a few probing questions put to him about why this is occuring and why ubuntu isn't being installed by default on netbooks.
I wouldn't be surprised if cannonical havent been asked.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
They could have paid me to tell them that people are generally lazy and ignorant. That they rather be spoonfed the same rubbish rather than learn something new.
The fact they're buying these things with Linux on without realising it shows how many people are too thick to be allowed on the internet.
These people can't even grasp how to use Windows properly. It's no wonder they're scared to move onto something else and sadly these people are allowed to vote on things that affect technology which they have no understanding of.
The internet will eventually become some handicapped politically correct environment to protect these people and further kill the evolutionary process.
While he lacks eloquence and tact, he tells the truth. In fact, I just spent two days helping a neighbor prepare her soon-to-be-published manuscript in OO.org, after her windows machine died. Initially I loaned her a laptop with Ubuntu on it, showed her how to start OO.org, and told her to call me if she had any trouble. This poor woman ( a typical non-tech user) was nearly in tears over not being able to find how to change text fonts and autoformat settings. And in OO.org, those settings are RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF YOUR FACE. They're not labeled in Hindi or anything...
Now, this neighbor is actually quite an intelligent and insightful person, but as I've witnessed before, give her a computer and she transforms into a complete moron. Yet she uses one daily! I suspect the great majority of users are like that; they learned once, long ago, how to do something on windows and now they are done learning. If they can't see the same icons and menus in the same places they simply give up, complaining bitterly that it's the computer's fault. They may be perfectly reasonable and intelligent people away from the computer, but while using one they are, for all intents and purposes, completely fucking stupid. It's frustrating.
So no, I'm not a bit surprised that lots of people return Linux netbooks. I see how they are.
Caveat Utilitor
My wife just purchased an HP mini-note. I've dabbled a bit with Ubuntu but Suse was new to me. The system comes completely uncustomized for easy use by the general consumer. For instance, it still has the OS set to search the optical drive for installable software...but there is NO OPTICAL drive in the computer. NONE of the online repositories for software are already added to the OS. There is absolutely NO documentation included with the system to help a new Windows XP -> Linux individual navigate their self around or teach them how to do something as simple as installing a piece of software or adding a software repository. Yeah, Google is there but to the Average Joe, you shouldn't have to search Google for every simple answer and then risk messing up your computer if you input a typo into one of your Terminal commands.
Dell IS incompetent. All their Linux "offerings" have been fucked up. They always give the Windows version the perks, like bigger hard drives and such, and throw Linux into the corner where you have to be purposefully searching for it to get it. Only now has Dell finally put Linux and Windows side-by-side with their mininote, but even then the Windows version still has hardware perks for buying it! WHY?
I don't know what kind of emails go back and forth between them and Microsoft, but they certainly seem to try hard to fuck it up and paint Linux as the worse option. I don't think it's the manager of the project, I think it's the policy of Dell and Microsoft.
Promote true freedom - support standards and interoperability.
Just to straighten things out a bit, I recommend you try a few of these games:
FPSes:
Strategy (mixing real-time and turn-based):
Others:
Those are all packages I found with a quick `aptitude search "~i~sGames"; that is, these are games that are packaged and trivially easy to install straight out of the box.
You can of course also install wine and create bottles for Starcraft, Warcraft and Diablo II if you have those games [or you can buy them at blizzard.com], among many others (so I hear).
Or you can install DosBox and play your old dos games (One Must Fall is the win). Or you can install uae (Amiga), vice (Commodore: Pets, VIC-20, 64, 128, CBM-II, PLUS/4), pscx (PlayStation), xmess (Atari 400/800/2600, Lynx, NES, SNES, GameBoy, Sega Master System, Sega Megadrive) or mame. Apologies to all emulators that I left out.
I'm not saying that Linux is just as great a gaming OS as windows. But claiming that there are next to no good games that are runnable on linux is simply being uninformed. And the cowsay bit, that was just making fun ;)
In my experience this is exactly why the Mac OS had so many issues with install base. It wasnt that it was difficult to learn, it was the simple fact they HAD to learn that dissuaded them. Still to this day even with EXACTLY the same programs there is a constant battle at work between those who want the macs because their support costs are much lower, and those who want the PCs because even though they cost more over the 3-5 service life, they are "easier to learn," because thats what they have at home even if for the most part they are not even close to doing anything more than checking the web and writing a document.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Mac OS and GNOME put Cancel (brake) on the left and OK (gas) on the right. Windows and some other environments do it the other way around.
In right-hand drive cars, the Japanese manufacturers put the turn signal lever on the right of the steering column and the windshield wiper controls on the left. European manufacturers put the turn signal on the right and the windshield wiper on the left.
When you are not used to it, it's not uncommon to sweat a little when the wipers come on instead of the turn signal.
Yes, I read the article. Yes, I know that they're looking at Ubuntu. Regardless of what it looks like, Ubuntu is still Linux. People who can't find the Word icon will still be unhappy.
No, saving a little money is not enough reason for most Windows users to switch.
Look, I'm not bashing Linux. I used it for a decade. But it is naive to expect people to willingly throw away their investment in Windows (time and money) simply to learn an OS that allows them to keep on doing the same things.
If someone is happy using, say, Word and Photoshop, what's attractive in hearing that Linux can't run Word and Photoshop but they can do pretty much the same things with Openoffice and Gimp, once they take the time to learn how to use them? Why should they do that when they can keep on using Word and Photoshop?
Like I said, i used Linux for ten years. I switched to Apple a few years ago because I wanted wireless to work. Now, I need to buy new hardware. I could easily save a few bucks and run Linux on something. But, why should I? I like Apple software, I'm accustomed to using it. Everything I did in Linux I can do on a Mac, often with greater ease and reliability. Why should I care if Linux allows me to do the same things once I learn how to use it and a bunch of new programs? Where's the incentive? There are tens of millions of Windows users thinking the same thing.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
I thought ASUS users just replaced their Linux with Windows in most cases. I have not seen MSI's Linux installation, but the ASUS version of Xandros on my daughter's Eee PC 4G is an unusable piece of crap. The most basic things don't work properly. A few of the snags I've run into:
Never seen such a mess before. If I were not an experienced Linux user myself, I'd have returned it. If MSI's is even worse than that, then wow... just wow.
is that so many are overlooking OPPORTUNITY. Now is the time to put together classes to teach business ppl HOW to run Linux machines. Not what a kernel is, or how to config DNS all by hand, but to instead show it GRAPHICALLY. And if the students tell you that they want to know how to set up a particular daemon or program and it requires lots of text manipulation (i.e. config files), than that is is sign that for the company to provide a help disk WITH those items or simply to sell a disk with graphical installers and controllers (or better yet, provide open source input and let us do it).
IOW, this is a BIG missed opportunity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It's not just that it's Linux, it's that it's not really an open system. Linux software installation depends so much on access to a common set of repositories and tools that installing anything that isn't in the repository that you start from is beyond a non-technical user.
So these boxes might as well be PSPs or iPhones - but without the pool of games and apps that go along with Sony's and Apple's big-company repositories, and without the pool of apps from the developer community. Linux handhelds went through the same initial burst of hope and discovery that there just wasn't that much software for Familiar or whatever... but there they didn't have the option of installing a normal Linux distro. but still, if I'd bought one and discovered that I had to reinstall the whole thing to get access to a decent pool of software, I might have returned it too.
People don't buy computers to run operating systems, they get them to run software. And not just developer software, or power user software, but software that you can't predict people will need. Linux is at a huge disadvantage there in the first place (even compared to OSX, let alone Windows), so throwing away the ability to use the big repositories is foolish.
I got pissed off when I upgraded Fedora 7 to F9 because it took me a whole three days to get things working the way I wanted because of the nvidia drivers, sure I restored my home directory and everything else worked. I was in the middle of an on-line course and I just had to get on with it. I thought 'no wonder people don;t want to use linux'
But soon after I compared that to a laptop that I had to configure for a C# development project with VS2008 and SMS2005 and MSSQL. I am diligent with my XP installs because I don't want the thing to fuck up once I get it set-up. So I use Project Dakota to patch it, installed VS2008, SMS2005 thinking I would be ok. Of course when you have a shit fight on XP - it drags on. Certain versions of MSSQL doesn't install properly with SMS2005 and I can't use database diagrams. I'm hand deleting roughly 50 registry entries and suddenly remembering why I like Linux.
I don't like using windows because it restricts me, but most users won't encounter those restrictions. What they don't realise is in Windows you go A-B-C-D and the task is done, in Linux you go A-B-C-D or A-D and the task is done. When you use windows there is no more efficient way to complete a task, you have to do the same brain dead RSI operation every time. I resent being told I have to use Windows in a work project because my effectiveness is instantly reduced. I feel lobotomised.
Which is the same reason windows people don't want to learn a new OS. There neural patterns have be set to *windoze* and they don't understand how to make that leap. They don't want their effectiveness reduced because thinking is the hardest work.
The F9 and Ubuntu I have is at least as pretty as Vista and mouse gestures come in handy too. I don't know how much better windows is than linux because I don't want to feel like a retard when I am using it, be limited to one pissy workspace, not be able to use all 8Gb ram, or all the CPU cores. I hate licence keys and registry shit. I get so frustrated using windows I think that anyone who really wants to use it, should.
Because that is the user experience they deserve. I think people's experience with the hassles of windows is what they presume is going to happen when they move to Linux. They fear that they are going to go through a whole new set of those experiences.
And they will, for a little while, lets be realistic, but then they will realise they don't get viruses any more, system performance is consistent, and they are able to fully utilise the machines power.
Linux will never be like windows, and thank goodness for that. Usability in Linux is improving with every distributions and no longer needs to duplicate functionality in windows, it gets better and better and is starting to pull ahead. If this is what makes Linux continue to improve then I hope linux is never ready for the desktop. If MSI want to distribute a shit version of linux, then they deserve to pay M$ licencing fees. They should stop distributing it because people will think that Linux is as crap as windows is.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
I got a 16GB eeePC w/ Xandros for my Mother this year.
Now whilst the average components worked fine, the file manager is clunky (she also got an SD card for work), the Wifi management is/was horrendous & the update manager is appalling.
File manager - This is like using explorer with a tree. Having to browse through the root filesystem to find simple, PnP storage devices.
Wifi - I had to kick the pile of crap into submission, making numerous changes before I could get it to connect to an encrypted network.
Both WPA & WEP connectivity were broken.
Updates - Regardless of the capacity of the computer you buy, everything bar /home is installed in the primary 4G device. /usr had filled the device to 100% & now the system runs like a hog.
After 2-3 updates,
With the above exceptions, the Xandros eeePC is great for a computer illiterate user. Unfortunately, the last issue means it probably won't be long before I just whack Ubuntu on it.
The OS may be no more difficult to learn (for everyday use; if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu),
I call BS on that statement.
I am a power user and in high level tech/server support, and one thing about power users is this: Interface is irrelevant.XP -> Ubuntu is equally as easy as XP-> Vista, Vista -> MacOS and MacOS -> Ubuntu.
What you are forgetting is that XP -> Anything Linux you could have a choice of Gnome, KDE, XFCE or a tonne of more obscure ones like IceWM or Enlightenment.
I have tried all of these above, I give tech support on all of these (OS'es and Environments) and once you teach a user where to click to do what they want they become drones again and to open mail click here, to edit a document click there and so on and so on endlessly. Users tend to "forget" the actual environment that they are in and learn an almost "muscle memory" type of sequence of mouse-gestures and keyboard clicks to get done what they want.
I got my wife to use Ubuntu, and she uses it every-day. I could've gotten her to use anything else.
The real pain comes in the "under the skin" things like adding your computer to a network, setting up your wireless and other essentially one-time housekeeping tasks that need to be done (setting up wireless on a laptop is more than a one-time task, but migrating around wireless networks with notebooks is an equal pain regardless of OS)
Then we get to actually installing the software and getting it to work with the actual hardware.Now immediately both you and I can point to areas where Windows has greater driver support from vendors than Linux - but ask yourself this: How many users ever set up their own hardware? Being a tech manager with an IT team I get the very strong impression that regardless of OS a user will call on us to install a new screencard, PCI/USB wifi network card or whatever the case might be. Thus user-wise the hardware issue has largely been negated by user incompetence. Remember though that users need only worry about using the computer - IT geeks like those who's job it is to fix computers are supposed to worry about the actual hardware, and again for a power user/tech support it is less than an issue than you think.
but then you also have the added learning curve of replacing every single application except possibly Firefox, if they weren't using IE before.
Again I need to point to the error of your statement.
1) Have you looked at the awesome cockup that is the Office 2007 interface?
I have countless users who phone me regularly to ask "where is the file meny", "where do I name the file when I (eventually found how to) save as" and so on.
2) Have you tried bringing an Office 2007 setup into an existing officespace?
Try telling a user over the phone how to install the patch that allows him to open .docx documents in Office 2003 OR explain why the Office 2007 user suddenly needs to save his files in a different type every-time-he-saves-it, or why it says "compatibility mode" when he opens a .doc file. Or why he can no longer open his old e-mails since he started using Outlook 2007 and his .pst file is no longer supported. Older versions of .pst files are a pain to recover.
3) A personal tale from first-hand experience.
We use a custom in house program developed in MS Access. Me, being a Linux user cannot use this program since I cannot open the database in Linux. That goes for every Office 2007 user in our company. The database needs to be converted to an Office 2007 compatible format before they can use it - and when that is done the ones using office 2003 can no longer use it since now it is incompatible with their version of office. We will only be able to get Office 2003 licenses for a short time still before 2k3 goes the way of XP. Thus very soon we will be forced to up
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
One of the nice things about M$ is that you know what you will get, either the XP or the Vista interface ... that is it. The various different Linux installs all have a slightly different interface, icons/drop-downs/... in different places & shapes - etc.
It turns out (as we know) that once you scratch the surface there is not much real difference, however most people can't be bothered to scratch to find out ... it isn't like their last PC and is therefor wrong.
that is more true than many realize. in my humble opinion 90% of users are nothing more than monkeys clicking keys in order to get the desired result. The same applies to cars. all they truly know is that you put a funny smelling liquid into it, turn a key, and wiggle the steering wheel around while pressing buttons on the floor to make it go and stop. It isn't complicated to understand the thing is they don't want to know.
it is the difference between memorizing a method and understanding the concept. you can set me down in front of any computer and I can learn the ins and outs of it in hours, (longer with more command line options). After a while some people stop learning, and everything after that point is a struggle.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The OS may be no more difficult to learn (for everyday use; if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu), but then you also have the added learning curve of replacing every single application except possibly Firefox, if they weren't using IE before.
If you're a power user, the increased control and efficiency you get from switching to Ubuntu will save you so much time in the long run that the slightly greater learning curve is a minimal cost to pay. I personally run Linux, but for casual users, I've started recommending Mac since it's easier to learn than either Vista or Ubuntu, and better in almost every respect than Vista.
Bottom line is, there's really no good reason for anyone to run Vista, though I can see the argument for sticking with XP as long as that's viable (and Microsoft keeps pushing back the deadline on that one).
Having just installed Ubuntu on a computer that had previously been running an older version of Slackware, I can tell you your full of crap.
Installing Vista on that hardware WORKED. WiFi worked, networking worked, etc. (that was my biggest bitch, the wifi part). It still DOESN'T reconnect if I reboot my access point, sometimes magically DISCONNECTS, etc.
Ubuntu isn't ready for prime time. IT IS a great OS, as is the other Linux distros, but it ISN'T ready, as this article / whatever you want to call it points out.
Wish it worked, but until the proprietary CRAP can be worked out (and it probably NEVER will be) (ie, getting madwifi to work OOBE, getting any wifi cards to work OOBE, etc).
The article states fact. Opinions have no relevance when arguing fact.
--Toll_Free
So they returned it because they expected Windows but got Linux and not because it was difficult to learn for them? I think not, read the interview.
Oh, they should blame the install, which was poor? Exactly how?
Oh, power users are the cause...the ones that probably have hacked copies of Windows waiting around to install over Linux (as you say, that's what they wanted...)
I think you are simply trying to divert the fact that Linux is not some kind of magical operating system that every user should embrace as the panacea to Windows. That's not the case and everyone knows it.
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode. Otherwise an XP machine is far better for the availability of apps and consistency of experience.
I think those who predicted years ago that computers would create two opposing classes; a cast of technologically savy, highly enabled upper class with wealth and power; and another sub class of non-computer literate, non-empowered workers without authority or means, effectively predicted this sort of event.
It is entirely possible to be a computer illiterate and use Windows, much less so with Linux. I suspect these returns represent a portion of that subclass. A prerequisite to a lifelong lack of knowledge is an aversion to novelty or learning.
In other words these people are the anologues, with VCRs that will flash 12:00 forever into eternity. They are the Canadians who still use mph instead of kph ... the BMW cycle owner who pays a fortune for shim stock, instead of snipping a piece off of a tin can (zataomm) ... they will never learn, not because they are unable, but instead because they are unwilling.
The only solution for them is to let them return their kit, and allow them to leave the store with a bit of dignity.
In B.C., our fascism is green.
No it won't.
I'm a power user and I never plan on switching to Linux. It boggles my mind that I can see these blanket "you will save much time in the long run..." exactly how? Are you adding up the seconds that the OS will boot faster (mainly because there are less apps available to install and run, and devices, so it may have less to load) or something else? Exactly how does Linux save me time that has any real meaning?
As for Vista, I'm with the vast majority in that MS screwed the pooch badly, but in reality IF you make the switch it's overall a very good OS. The networking subsystem is much better, 3D performance is, ultimately, better if you are running Vista 64 as well as it being the only viable 64bit Windows platform... It's also considerably more forgiving to problem applications than XP. But XP is certainly viable as well and is a lighter snappier OS than Vista.
Now if it was 15 years ago and we were starting this all over again all of this might be a different story but people need to remember that Linux with a decent GUI has had a lot less history than Windows. Windows has carried the baggage of having to support a vastly larger user and application/device base than Linux. That monumental task is far beyond the capabilities of the Linux community even today, I'd suggest, simply because it has a smaller support base. But like I said, if this was 15 years ago and Linux was developed to be more of a consumer OS things might be different, but that's not the case.
Comments about Linux being better because it's faster, lighter, "better designed" or whatever have to be taken with the understanding that it's developers have had much smaller project to tackle than the Windows teams.
Well, here is the thing. I think most people understand that a computer has become an appliance. It's a machine to gather information, publish information, and a simple communications tool. Most people have come to know windows because it's loaded on every factory made box everywhere. I think that people want to spend time doing the things they do on a computer and not to learn about the machine or software they are using. It's all about being productive. *nix is a vastly more powerful OS in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it. The vast majority of people going to Wal-Mart to buy a computer don't care about this. The only way to make this customer happy is to emulate what they do know (outlook express, IE, Menu's, Office). If you can't do this 80% of the people buying your machine are going to be some what unhappy. Will some people learn a new way to do things, yes. However, even after they learn this still might not be enough as these are the same people who will likely become frustrated and have someone load windows back on their machine. If equipment manufacturers want to move away from windows they will need to provide a distro that looks and feels like windows and I haven't seen any distro that has accomplished this.
it is the difference between memorizing a method and understanding the concept.
,like running my business, fixing up my house, studying art, whatever. I wouldn't bother with Linux because to me, it's a complete and total waste of my time.
Or, it's the case of people having other, more interesting things to spend their time learning. I used to be a computer geek, but now stuff like OS' bore the living shit out of me. I have -zero- interest in dicking around with a computer any more than I have to. I have a lot more interesting things to do
I don't respond to AC's.
Most netbooks have come in inferior distros--inferior meaning ease of use and community and marketshare. They should have used ubuntu from the start, or mint linux or gOS. I can't make the experiments, but these, I believe, would not be returned as much. BTW, by Ubuntu I mean a VENDOR-THEMED packaged, mod me down to oblivion, but the sad fact is that ubuntu is simply just fucking too much ugly for anyone to use as it comes.
Bingo.
I found an online review of MSI's U90 unit, and the review found that neither the Webcam nor the wireless worked out of the box. They opined that you'd need to go buy and install a copy of XP Home to turn the unit into something usable.
Seriously, is MSI a Microsoft front organization?
* * * * *
"Empty-handed I went to the widget library, empty-handed I renturned."
—Binkei, 9th-century Japanese programmer-monk
Re: need to relearn how to use every single application.
My less computer literate friends like Open Office Writer better than the new Word 2007. OoWriter looks more familiar and they don't have to relearn everything like they need to for Word 2007.
OpenOffice 2.4 does *NOT* have out-of-box support for Office 2007 documents. There's a separate utility called odf-converter - I know because I haven't been able to compile it under Arch :)
However, 3.0 is supposed to have it and rc3 is out.
Or, it's the case of people having other, more interesting things to spend their time learning.
I used to be a computer geek, but now stuff like OS' bore the living shit out of me.
Yes. and the end result of this anti-intellectualism is an inability
to back up your own data or keep your computer safe from malware.
In some misguided rush to avoid being a "computer geek" you can't even
use the "appliance" beyond its most rudimentary features (even in Windows).
Nevermind "the difficulty of Linux", drones like you can't even be bothered
to fully utilize Windows. The go whining to the local Windows or Linux guru
to be bailed out or coddled.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Abiword has .docx support if odf-converter isn't available to you for some reason. (yeah me too, distro shipped an older OO, plus it's PPC)
Remember though that users need only worry about using the computer - IT geeks like those who's job it is to fix computers are supposed to worry about the actual hardware, and again for a power user/tech support it is less than an issue than you think.
Not in my personal experience; maybe it's my fault for choosing the wrong wireless card years before I switched to Linux, or for wanting hardware 3D acceleration, </sarcasm> but having to rebuild drivers from the command line with every kernel upgrade (and pray that they work, because I can't download updated wireless drivers without rebooting into the old kernel!) isn't something I particularly enjoy putting up with.
Have you looked at the awesome cockup that is the Office 2007 interface?
Yes, I have, and quickly ran away screaming. ;) I was thinking more about a Office 2003 -> OpenOffice transition when I wrote that. You're right, it can be just as bad without changing OSes. It usually isn't, but it can be, as Microsoft oh-so-recently proved. :)
Migrating between OS'es is a general pain - and it is unfair to give Linux (and to single out Ubuntu which is one of the more seamless migrates out there is a bit... strange) special grief.
I used Ubuntu as that's what the grandparent was talking about suggesting people migrate to.
Generally, yes, it is a pain. But if you can run your old applications (XP -> Vista), or if there are versions of your old applications that will behave the same way (XP/Office 2003 -> OS X/Office 2004), then it'll be much less painful.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
C'mon, vendors. This is Linux we're talking about. Customize it until there's NO WAY people can't understand how to use it. Include training videos, tutorials, goal- or task-based projects. Do WHAT IT TAKES because this is Linux, and you have *only* yourself to blame if your approach doesn't work. I mean, you (the vendor) can do whatever you want with it, for crying out loud. Make it stand out in ways that Windows or OSX lacks. But no, vendors are too cheap for this crap. They can't see past Linux's lack of a price tag long enough to understand the real opportunity here.
Or, it's the case of people having other, more interesting things to spend their time learning. I used to be a computer geek, but now stuff like OS' bore the living shit out of me. I have -zero- interest in dicking around with a computer any more than I have to. I have a lot more interesting things to do ,like running my business, fixing up my house, studying art, whatever. I wouldn't bother with Linux because to me, it's a complete and total waste of my time.
Hi, Nice point. I am sending you a file called FUNNY_SEXY_PAYPAL_KEYLOGGER.exe, and you are so going to love it. It's like, well, I won't spoil the fun. Let me just say it: it will drive you nuts!
When you buy a netbook with installed Linux, all of your complaints here are not relevant. Yes, Linux has a way to go yet with regards to installing on random hardware, but the article was not talking about random hardware installations, but pre-installed netbooks.
So there must be some other reason for the higher rate of returns. In any case, as others mentioned, the higher rate is meaningless without absolute numbers. 40% return (vs. 10% for Windows) would be horrendous; 4% return (vs. 1% for Windows) would be not great, but not that bad either.
I'm a technical guy, and I bought an EEE with Xandros in anticipation of learning about Linux and escaping Windows for good. To make the story short, I eventually EBayed it and bought one with XP.
Prvious posts have laid it all out. Unless you enjoy spending hours Googling on Linux configuration files and distributions, and fiddling with 70s-era text editors and command-line arcania, you're just wasting your time.
I managed to install FF3 after a struggle but when I couldn't get Flash going, that was the final straw.
I'll check on Linux again in another 15 years or so.
It has little to do with the OS merely being 'different' than Mac or Windows, otherwise all these smartphones running everything from Symbian to custom Linux-based stacks would suffer the same returns problem (and for the most part, they don't).
Installing and updating software applications is a royal beeotch.
With a Windows setup (horrible warts and all), you just download and install your software packages as on a desktop PC.
But with Linux-based stuff, since you're not dealing with a well-defined platform, you will almost never encounter a neatly-packaged application that will install with a few clicks. So you are stuck with outdated/missing apps in the distros repository, or wrestling with downloaded rpms and debs and their dependency nightmares.
The lack of a well-defined desktop platform and the adherence to software repository culture that inserts itself between the user and the app developers are to blame here.
It doesn't have to be this way in FOSS. As it happens though the politics of defining a platform that ISVs can target directly just aren't there yet.
Relative values are virtually useless without the accompanying absolute ones. A 0.8% return rate is four times higher than a 0.2% one - but neither is worth losing any sleep over. Anyone know the actual rates involved, here?
then Linux notebooks/netbooks will continue to be dead in the water for Joe and Jill User.
"Better" in this context does not mean "cooler for the geek", it means "more easily usable for the masses".
I got so sick of the Asus Linux that I installed Ubuntu. Generally the experience is much nicer but the wifi UI is just dreadful and it still didn't support 3G modems. I hope 8.10 is much better and I'm looking forward to it.
On the flip side, a Linux install comes with an insane amount of free stuff - games, browsers, email, office applications, skype, aim etc. MSI, Asus et al should be pointing this out. In some cases even the hardware is better.
The best Linux dist I've seen in a Netbook so far is Acer's. This appears to run Xfce but looks very windows like and it's very slick too, much better than my experiences with the Eee PC.
that is more true than many realize. in my humble opinion 90% of users are nothing more than monkeys clicking keys in order to get the desired result. The same applies to cars. all they truly know is that you put a funny smelling liquid into it, turn a key, and wiggle the steering wheel around while pressing buttons on the floor to make it go and stop. It isn't complicated to understand the thing is they don't want to know.
it is the difference between memorizing a method and understanding the concept. you can set me down in front of any computer and I can learn the ins and outs of it in hours, (longer with more command line options). After a while some people stop learning, and everything after that point is a struggle.
It always strikes me as ironic that the more elitist comments here have the worst spelling and grammar.
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
If by consistency you means consistent crashing right after startup then I agree (joking). MS has dumbed-down the computer and made studying it's OS's almopst impossible beyond a superficial level (ooh the registry! I'm really hacking now! bleh)
Why does one require a logical reason to run Linux? For me at the moment, it is an interesting hobby tweaking my OS, breaking it and re-installing. WHen I used to do this with windows, I would get all sorts of questions from the person on the phone when I would have to re-register with a new license code etc and eventually I just got fucked off with bloat, nagware and the shitware (IE especially).
Another side benefit I had not anticipated with Linux is network speed. Using FF3 in Windows and 2Mbps ADSL, i'd be lucky to achieve 300kB/sec. Running Debian, I'm lucky if it drops below that. Windows is just as crappy as people who hate on Linux think Linux is. It is simply different, and while I agree it is not a panacea, there are many more reasons to abandon windows than just what you stated.
Debian FTW
"No it won't.
I'm a power user and I never plan on switching to Linux. It boggles my mind that I can see these blanket "you will save much time in the long run..." exactly how? Are you adding up the seconds that the OS will boot faster (mainly because there are less apps available to install and run, and devices, so it may have less to load) or something else? Exactly how does Linux save me time that has any real meaning?"
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(1) It does boot faster. Especially with a couple new tricks developers are coming out with. Not the "load the GUI and have stuff continue to load in the background" crap that most Windows and Linux flavors do, but actually BOOTING in that time. That's beside the point. You have a valid arguement with the "time" thing, however.
Boot time has nothing to do with apps loading, unless you're a monkey with muscle memory (talked about in another reply) and haven't removed the CRAPLOAD OF USELESS BLOAT that gets install with pre-loaded copies of Windows. Boot time has to do with essential services loading. SERVICES (daemons, whatever you choose to call them) are NOT the same thing as applications.
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"As for Vista, I'm with the vast majority in that MS screwed the pooch badly, but in reality IF you make the switch it's overall a very good OS. The networking subsystem is much better, 3D performance is, ultimately, better if you are running Vista 64 as well as it being the only viable 64bit Windows platform... It's also considerably more forgiving to problem applications than XP. But XP is certainly viable as well and is a lighter snappier OS than Vista."
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(2) The network system is NOT better at all, in fact is causes LOTS of problems. Look around on the internet, you'll find examples I promise. Microsoft really fucked the goat on this one.
(3) 3d performance, at least in gaming, is absolute shit. If you go to any decent games/hardware/review/benchmarking sites, if you take a DX9 game on Vista run that same game in DX9 mode on XP, the Vista implementation gets SLAUGHTERED. Yes, Vista supports DX10, so it may have some "look-pretty-features", but speed wise, it's the difference between an inline 4cyl engine and 350 V-8 (sorry for the car analogy!) :P
(4) More forgiving to problem applications than XP? What fucking rock are you smoking? There are simply SO MANY applications than ran just fine on XP that REFUSE TO RUN, STILL, on Vista. Yes, many of these problems have now been fixed, but the issue remains. I'm sorry, exactly where are you getting these facts from? Can you point to a couple sources please, I feel like I'm talking to Palin about Alaska's energy production figures.
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"Now if it was 15 years ago and we were starting this all over again all of this might be a different story but people need to remember that Linux with a decent GUI has had a lot less history than Windows. Windows has carried the baggage of having to support a vastly larger user and application/device base than Linux. That monumental task is far beyond the capabilities of the Linux community even today, I'd suggest, simply because it has a smaller support base. But like I said, if this was 15 years ago and Linux was developed to be more of a consumer OS things might be different, but that's not the case."
-----------
15 years ago we had what, Windows 3.11 for Workgroups? I remember installing that, along with DOS, using a crap-ton of 1.44Mb floppies. Linux had JUST COME OUT, and the internals were still approximatly, 10 years AHEAD in terms of development and feature set than Windows/DOS. You're talking about the differance between a true 32 bit enviroment (Linux) and the 16 bit (16/32 hybrid) glory that was Windows 3.11. Fuck, (consumer grade) Windows didn't have a fully 32 bit enviroment until Windows 2000. And let's not even get INTO security and reliability issues between the two. Heaven forbid Windows gets a real journaling file system and some fucking legitamate security features.
But, I degress... you were talk
"Interestingly enough, we struggled with the Linux version of the Wind U90. Are there plans to tailor a Linux OS for the Wind?
We plan to bring the Linux version to the U.S by the end of the year. But we are working on some of the issues with the SUSE Linux and even continue to explore other flavors of Linux. We have discussed Ubuntu with a Mac OS type of look and feel. We are talking to different suppliers to figure out the best user experience."
MSI seems to be trying to make linux work. It seems they are as unfamiliar with linux flavors as their users are.
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode.
and 3) the library of *free* software available
and 4) safety from viruses and malware
I think by consistency he means going almost a decade between releases. I'm sure Ubuntu could do the same. Warty Warthog Service Pack 3, anyone?
Saying the ONLY two logical reasons are cost and boot time kinda weakens your argument.
The strongest reason for people I know, making the switch, is the malware problem. They don't give a shit about cost or boot time.
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
Then please refrain from using a computer.
You know the first thing I did when I first got a digital camera? I learned photography. Not just "how to turn the camera on", but aperture, shutter speeds, exposure, rules of composition, etc. Yeah, I "could" have let the camera handle most of that stuff, but I know that unless I know what's it doing on the background even on the Auto modes, I have no right to expect something other than shitty results.
I simply can't understand why people don't do the same with computers... I mean, do you go to a guitar store, buy a $600 guitar, and then return it the next day because you didn't sound like Jimi Hendrix? I seriously hope not.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
I am not trying to influence your stance, however I can honestly address your question about how Linux will save a person time. Off the top of my head, here are 2 things I like about using Linux.
Windows spews personal data anywhere an app wants to put it (docs and settings, program files, wherever). Linux has a sane file structure. If you want to clean up your tracks, this is much easier to do in Linux because most all applications adhere to sensible norms.
You will not spend any time dealing with malware or viruses. You don't even have to think about them, update definitions, etc.
Overclockers
I said "Today" referring to OpenOffice 3. I have run across some users who had .docx support without installing the converter apparently.
I give you your point though - but counter with: How does that make a difference? You need to do the same for Office 2k3 as for the *current* version of OpenOffice.
Hence you cannot sucsessfully argue that OpenOffice is less compatible than MS Office with MS Office based on the .docx support stakes.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
In some netbooks the GNU/Linux OS supplied is not what we are used to: it's a locked down OS where in some netbooks you cannot even log in as root or install applications. I believe the return rate has more to do with crippled down GNU/Linux implementations rather than the GNU/Linux as a system itself.
Yeah, and Office 2007 doesn't have out of the box support for OOXML.
Or, it's the case of people having other, more interesting things to spend their time learning. I used to be a computer geek, but now stuff like OS' bore the living shit out of me. I have -zero- interest in dicking around with a computer any more than I have to. I have a lot more interesting things to do ,like running my business, fixing up my house, studying art, whatever. I wouldn't bother with Linux because to me, it's a complete and total waste of my time.
Hm, this is one of the reasons why I don't do free tech support anymore. Yes people are free to choose what they learn, but if they choose not to learn basic concepts they become a burden to others. I have absolutely no problem with charging them money to support this behavior as this sort of thing is the root of all kinds of trouble that could otherwise be easily avoided.
Regardless of what OS you use you still need to know something about it. Well, either that or you pay someone to fix your stuff regularly, or maybe you just replace the thing whenever the trojans cause it to become an anchor. Frankly, the fact that MS markets to people who think this way probably does more to damage their software's rep than the fact that so much of it is buggy.
Take the bail-out for instance. Like that old saying implies it may not have been corruption so much as the side effect of having too many 'post-turtles' in the wrong places.
Perhaps this is just a cry for some kind of standard GUI across all OSes - you know a kind of universal interface. Sounds like a long way off, but if UI innovation stagnates sufficiently, I think it's only a matter of time. Just annoying how many people will buy car B over car A just because car B has one more cup holder. Doesn't matter if car A can fly, cure disease and fight off alien invaders. Sigh.
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode. Otherwise an XP machine is far better for the availability of apps and consistency of experience.
and 3) performance in low-end PCs and 4) ease of programming and 5) ability to reuse skills learned on it on any of the commercial UNIXen and 6) total lack of DRM and...
Well, you get the idea. I agree with your main point, that it's entirely possible that for some of these customers Linux simply wasn't the right choice, but gosh, your last paragraph is trollish, flamebait, ignorant, and wrong, sorry.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode. Otherwise an XP machine is far better for the availability of apps and consistency of experience.
Oh, and software that gets faster with time (see KDE 4 vs. KDE 3). And better hardware support (dead serious). And a nicer desktop (got anything to compare to Compiz yet?). And a smaller footprint (I'm using less than half of the 1GB of RAM on the Eee PC I'm typing this on right now). And a software library that makes Windows look niche (I'll put apt-get against VersionTracker any day of the week). And a more consistent interface (see: those screenshots of 20 different widget toolkits on a single Windows screen).
Yeah, besides being a better, faster, cheaper, prettier system with better 3rd-party support, I don't see much point in using Linux over XP. Oh, and double that for Vista.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I'm a power user and I never plan on switching to Linux. It boggles my mind that I can see these blanket "you will save much time in the long run..." exactly how? Are you adding up the seconds that the OS will boot faster (mainly because there are less apps available to install and run, and devices, so it may have less to load) or something else?
Well, I am going on my own experience as a power user who used to use XP. There are of course significant time savings involved in the automation capabilities linux provides via various scripting languages, and for largish repetitive tasks this can be huge. The main time savings come from the little things though. The time it takes each program to load up, the number of mouse click/button presses it takes to do things like open files, copy files, etc., the ease with which I can quickly switch between programs and desktops to manage an efficient workflow, all these add up. Granted, if you spend most your time working in a single program, you won't notice much difference, but if you do any serious multitasking, the difference is huge.
When I use Windows now, even on a brand new machine, I feel as if I spend half my time waiting for the OS to catch up to what I'm doing. I'm guessing you haven't spent much real work time using Linux, because the difference is really tangible.
As far as 'supporting a vastly larger application base' goes, I question your definition of 'support'. Microsoft makes very little effort to support applications, XP failed to support Windows 95 applications, and the applications for XP came out after the fact; when XP first released, relatively few programs would run on it. Windows doesn't support a vast application base, rather, a vast application base has grown up around it despite the poor support. If there's any measure of what constitutes good support for applications, it would be how easy it is to program for the OS. I've never met a programmer who claims windows is easier to program for.
the ability to open all filetypes that XP/Vista opens, and more, including .docx and all the video/audio formats and devices
Linux blows the doors off of Windows in this respect. This is especially
true for video/audio. This is one of those strange bits of FUD that seems
to get perpetuated when the actual reality is far FAR different.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I'm not sure if you are supporting or making fun of :)
In any event I'm not quite sure where you got the decade number, it's been consistently 4 years... or can't you add on that Linux box of yours ;)
I'm not so sure about that. I would think "power users" would know what was on the device, Linux or Windows, and would not get it with Linux if they didn't want it. The geeks again would know what they want.
There is a long way to go down from the "power user" down to the neophyte and that is probably where these returns come from. For an example, I was at a party the other day and telling some guys about the OLPC. A wife of one heard me and later was asking me about like she was considering doing the G1G1. I constantly mentioned it was for children but somehow she just heard of all the features and that it was cheap( $200 ) and paying an extra $200 as a charity/donation was fine but she wanted to use it herself. And I'm talking about 30 or so minutes talking to her and more than that discussing it with the guys.
People just don't _get_ the basics about computers and seem to only hear or see what they want to hear and see. And the geeks around me who bought netbooks got Linux on them, wanted Linux on them and tweaked it( KDE mostly ) the way they wanted it.
Maybe in store demo's were not functioning or something or maybe these returns were purchased online without understanding there is more out there besides a Windows PC or a Mac PC. You know, a Linux PC. I am surprised that more highschool kids don't get into Linux more since it is free and there are tons of things to do with it if you just learn where it is(package manager) and find the online tutorials. IMO
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Now now, you know you can go deeper than the registry if you want to. Much deeper. There's wide range of available API's at various levels available to developers.
If you like to "tweak and break" your OS you are in the sub 1 percent of users out there. If you are doing it for persons other than yourself and they are calling you with "all sorts of questions"... who's fault is that, yours or Microsoft's? ;D
I'm not quite sure what you mean by saying that Windows somehow drops your network performance to 1/6 to 1/7th of your DSL connection? Really now, I am running Vista and I have a TimeWarner connection that is 20mbps... I have tested it consistently and I get just that out of the box... 20mbps. Saying that the OS drops your network connection by that order of magnitude is just malarky. If you have an app (sorry don't know what FF3 is by your reference) that is having issues... I'd bet it's the app and not the OS that's the culprit.
I can stream my SlingBox at 5mbps, download movies, play an online video game, all with no noticeable network or system performance lag, in Vista. And certainly I haven't topped out the network capability simply because there's no practical reason to stream more.
I dont' see myself abandoning Windows any time soon. I have NO desire to limit myself to a smaller available set of applications and device support than I have in Windows.
I'm not saying Linux is bad, but for most users, including power users, Linux provides little to entice a move. However for those that like to play with new OS's or want a smaller lighter and (possibly) more stable server platform then Linux makes sense.
Remember though that users need only worry about using the computer - IT geeks like those who's job it is to fix computers are supposed to worry about the actual hardware, and again for a power user/tech support it is less than an issue than you think.
Not in my personal experience; maybe it's my fault for choosing the wrong wireless card years before I switched to Linux, or for wanting hardware 3D acceleration, </sarcasm>
One area where Ubuntu has improved is Nvidia Driver support via the restricted drivers manager. One area where Ubuntu support rapidly falls apart is when you try and change screen resolutions and screen types. I have had to edi xorg.conf for more than one client and for my wife too many times.
but having to rebuild drivers from the command line with every kernel upgrade (and pray that they work, because I can't download updated wireless drivers without rebooting into the old kernel!) isn't something I particularly enjoy putting up with.
What distro are you using? I am really interested since I haven't come across this until I recently started using gentoo - now there is something only the bravest of geeks should try... with most of the mainstream distro's though your issue should be sorted out - or at least have a plan in place to sort it out.
Have you looked at the awesome cockup that is the Office 2007 interface?
Yes, I have, and quickly ran away screaming. ;) I was thinking more about a Office 2003 -> OpenOffice transition when I wrote that. You're right, it can be just as bad without changing OSes. It usually isn't, but it can be, as Microsoft oh-so-recently proved. :)
Yes.
Apple seem to have hit a nice stride in the continuity stakes with their operating system as of late.Upgrading is relatively painless and if you are used to userspace moving on is easy. The same can be said for Gnome - use a gnome interface from a few years ago and one of the newest ones today and you feel immediately at home.
Sad to say but this is not true for KDE4 - I have used it and while it is an awesome piece of eyecandy I find it a general pain to use and in fact believe that Vista and KDE4 is basically a coin toss as far as choice goes - unlike with Vista, however, I firmly believe that the KDE4 interface will steadily improve through it's lifetime.
Migrating between OS'es is a general pain - and it is unfair to give Linux (and to single out Ubuntu which is one of the more seamless migrates out there is a bit... strange) special grief.
I used Ubuntu as that's what the grandparent was talking about suggesting people migrate to.
Fair enough - I myself migrated from XP to an installed version of Knoppix (on a vm) before Ubuntu became one of three OS'es I multi booted with - the others were XP and Mandrive Live with Metisse. Go figure. I have however been tooling around with Linux since 2000 when I played with Mandriva (remember the wizard??) and Red Hat, unsure what version this was - I hated it.
Generally, yes, it is a pain. But if you can run your old applications (XP -> Vista), or if there are versions of your old applications that will behave the same way (XP/Office 2003 -> OS X/Office 2004), then it'll be much less painful.
Agreed.
One thing that has made the migrating-ti-Linux thing much easier is the Wubi install option for Ubuntu.
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
if you're a power user, though, XP -> Vista is still easier than XP -> Ubuntu
I don't agree. XP has menus. Ubuntu has menus. Vista, IE, and MS-Office have moved away from menus. Most computer users understand and rely on menus a lot.
The more relevant comparison would be between Ubuntu and Vista. Anecdotally, a friend of mine just got a tablet PC running Vista that she is about to either return or try to talk the OEM into installing XP on it. This is an English teacher with no love for geekiness what so ever. She is going to have to go through the pain and agony of all of this because her wireless doesn't work on Vista. This is a known and well documented issue that neither Microsoft nor HP has gone to the trouble to fix.
Linux is more difficult to use..But they dont know that Linux is only the operating systems they can use 100%..Like Windows it controls everything...Just clicking button and automated results is like a flash animation playing... EVERYBODY MUST LEARN LINUX.
Hardly flamebait. But you are right there are other reasons. My point is mainly to say I don't believe they are enough and I think my last paragraph is still true... gosh!
Now there are some great uses for Linux as well as you pointed out. Such as performance on low end PCs (however I believe light versions of XP have been shown to perform just as well). However I was trying to make the same point in my number 2 above.
Btw I did pull that "Sub 1 percent" comment out of the air. I think it's probably true though. Just wanted to say that for the sake of truth in posting :)
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode. Otherwise an XP machine is far better for the availability of apps and consistency of experience.
Presumably you're talking about this from the point of view of a manufacturer. From the user's perspective, there's plenty of other logical reasons to switch.
You are right, thanks for pointing that out. It's easy to make blanket statements in forum posts :)
The thing that bugs me about the malware problem is that I don't think it's an OS problem, it's really a "success" problem. There's simply soooo many more users on Windows that it's the obvious target. I am not sure that Linux would fare any better if it had similar success. I doubt (but could be wrong) that there is anything inherently better about Linux that makes it more immune to malware...?
I'll assume that your run-on sentence was intended to have a semicolon after "manual". But I don't know how wiki explanations can be so useful if you don't already have networking up.
Yes sorry my punctuation is quite bad when I write online. Also, English is not my first language and I do as much as I can to write it properly. In Ubuntu networking is on out-of-the box, in fact everything except for my Webcam works right out of the box. That's why I installed it. I put in the first LiveCD of Dapper back then and I could use Firefox to surf, sound worked and I could easily manipulate my files and partitions.
Most people buying netbooks don't have access to you. Who will train them?
That's what I'm saying. More people need to know how to use Linux so they can teach other people. How do Windows virgins start? What if you buy your very first computer? You need some friends or relatives or colleagues that show you how to get around and the rest is trial and error. That's how I learned at least. There are some great Screencasts/Podcasts out there that teach you the basic workings of Linux and I find the Ubuntu Wikis really helpful. The only difference is that with Windows someone who's been through all the reading explains the stuff you need to know. With Linux you usually go through all that yourself BUT you pick up a lot of cool knowledge on the way. In the end most people can only be bothered to learn one set of software to operate (instead of understanding what it is about and thus being able to operate all types of programs) and this is where I want Linux or at least "Technology" as a form of understanding software to come in front of Microsofts strange locked in view of the world.
Mac OS and GNOME put Cancel (brake) on the left and OK (gas) on the right. Windows and some other environments do it the other way around.
I personally find the GUI of GNOME much more intuitive than any Mac OS or Windows I've ever used. In a European language, English for that matter, the reader scans the line from left to right. "OK" being the right hand side so closer to the end of the sentence ergo a psychological bridge for the decision to actually read through the error message and click then. In Windows where OK is on the left hand side you don't even bother to look at the text, you usually just click because the button is closer to the beginning of the sentence anyway. I think when you have to look at least a bit to the right and move your hand in that direction your brain will scan the sentence and you are much more likely to prevent wrong clicks. But that's just my theory.
Yet another sign that Linux is unsuitable for the mass market.
I got the decade number from XP. 7 years is nearly a decade.
If you mean high school geeks, then yeah, it's surprising that so many geeks come out of high school having learned a lot about running Windows instead of having learned about how to run a Linux system.
But the rest of them want to play games, chat with their friends, watch videos, etc... The games they want are only available for Windows, so they use it. (Hell, many of my friends who are also Comp Sci majors have Windows boxes to play games!) Even more fundamental than that, though, they don't know about it, and never look for an alternative to Windows because they don't know that's even physically possible. A PC runs Windows, a Mac runs Mac OS.
ttuttle is a rankmaniac
Most Linux systems, on a basic level, are more secure by design. Simply running as a "Limited User" instead of as a full-blown Administrator has major effects on what can and can't be done as far as malware goes. Couple that with AppArmor or SeLinux, which limits the reach of almost any executable, and you're looking at a much more secure system from the get go.
Vista has caught up a bit, mostly by imitating the system that Unix, Linux, BSD and OSX have used for years now, but there are tons of windows users who turn UAC off because it's "annoying" or because some older software needs administrator access to do basic stuff.
Sure, no OS is perfect, and all can be broken into, but you're starting from a much better place with most GNU/Linux OSes.
4 years???
windows 95 -> Windows 98 3 years
Windows 98 -> Windows 2000 2 years
Windows 2000 -> Windows XP 1 year (2 if you're generous).
Windows XP -> Windows Vista 7 years
It's never actually *been* 4 year between releases!
When you watch TV/listen to the radio, you just want to turn it on, not wait for the radio tubes to warm up, then adjust the band spread, noise limiter, aim the antennae and fiddle with it's boost, etc.
To these people, this is what using Linux is like - too much work for something that they just want to work. More than likely they also bought the Linux version, because it was cheaper - thus no Windows tax.
They want something like a modern car, just turn the key and go(E.g."Microsoft ad campaign"). They don't want to use a hand cranked starter, adjust the manual choke, blend in some oil into the gas for a two cycle engine, etc.
..........FULL STOP.
You forgot the obligatory, "get off my lawn".
This attitude is also why there are so many PCs that are parts of botnets -- the owner just doesn't care enough, so because of the inattention, everyone else is getting hit by one more hacked Windows machine spewing out spam or DDoS attacks.
Stop being a burden on the rest of the Internet because you are too lazy to do basic computer hygiene. If this keeps up, there are a lot of legislatures that will be happy to pass laws to protect the "hapless" consumer... such as mandatory trusted computing.
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Oh yes, it makes perfect sense to gear our education system to force-feed people Linux!!! Don't give people what they want, give them what you want them to have, even if you have to brainwash their children to make them choose Teh Lunix.
It's for their own good. Can't they see that? Teh FOSS and Teh Lunix, by Any Means Necessary!!!!
Windows 2000 wasn't a consumer operating system. It was the successor to NT.
There was Windows ME, but that was really just 98 3rd edition.
If you had super powers, would you use them for good, or for awesome?
Sort of what I thought was happening because they aren't showing up in any of the usual places that handle refurbed laptops. At least I haven't seen them yet, looked a couple of times since the big netbook thing hit with the eee. I've seen *used* but not factory refurbs with warranties. Ergo, being repackaged as "new".
How so? I recently built a new gaming rig, and it has Vista. I last seriously used XP on my previous gaming rig, but in the last two years, I haven't done much PC gaming, so haven't used that system much.
I've had no trouble figuring out Vista. When I have some problem, or want to make configuration change, or something like that, I've found that if I ask myself "what would I do in XP?", and then try to apply that answer in Vista, I end up at the right place. And when I get there, I almost always have found that the way Vista actually handles accomplishing what I want to do is much better than XP's way.
You give me my point? I wasn't trying to make a point at all, just stating the simple fact that the current (=stable) version of OpenOffice doesn't support .docx out of the box. I know very well that Office 2k3 doesn't support it either.
But if you insist on me trying to make a point, I can restate my personal experience that I haven't been able to get the official conversion tool up and running - though admittedly I haven't spent much time with it, and it's probably just a hickup in the (unofficial) Arch package and big distros such as Ubuntu probably pack their own (working) binaries.
OK, so now you've got me to rant. Look, I've been using Linux since 1995. I like it and it fits my needs very well - I haven't booted Windows on my main machine for about a year now, except for a VirtualBox XP image I use to check whether my Javascript works under IE. But from an average desktop user POV I wouldn't say Linux is still up to shape when compared to Windows. It's much better than a few years ago, but still not great.
Drivers. What can I say, we've all been there. I have an Atheros wireless card, and if I were an average user on a Fedora I'd be screwed. I'm also screwed on Arch because the driver for my TI card reader doesn't read XD cards. Both are very common in laptops. Guess I'm lucky because I own an Intel video card. Worked great under Ubuntu, Compiz and all that - until you discover that XV video doesn't play all that great. But you can fix it, if you switch to the EXA rendering mode instead of XAA and use a greedy migration heuristic. Simple, huh?
Codecs. People would kinda like to play their DVDs and stuff occassionally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Add an additional repo and download it. Doesn't work.
Visual impression. I agree that it's much improved now - when I just think of fonts from say, Fedora Core 4... oh boy (and that wasn't too long ago). KDE looks pretty good now, Crystal Clear is nice, and KDE4 is a hot mamma (a buggy hot mamma, but still a hot mamma). Still the quality of the interface is not consistent accross apps.
Category: misc stuff. My big personal gripe is the NetworkManager - that thing has a mind of its own. Not to mention that the last time I used it, you couldn't even disconnect from a network with it. Why why why why don't distros replace it with wicd or any other sane alternative?
And finally, there is the point of niche apps that has been raised in this thread. CAD users, video artists, music artists. I'm a hobby musician, and Linux doesn't cut it - my $400 M-Audio rig only works with Windows and Mac, sorry. I have to keep a separate box for that.
So anyhow, I'm not just sure about the year of the Linux desktop. I don't know if it's ever going to happen. It might be an evolution rather than a revolution, as Linux gets gradually better and more user-friendly - Shuttleworths recent efforts are surely to be applauded. But somehow I feel that it's just going to be about marketing - you know, an iLinux or something.
Why the heck am I getting into these discussions and rehashing something that's been said a million times by others, I don't know. Please mod me down into oblivion and make me come to my senses
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Actually,and I know i'm going to get the hate for mentioning them,but Xandros does a damned good Windows impersonation. The initial setup wizard even asks you if you want it to "act like Windows"(it also asks whether you'd like it to act like Apple or KDE) which if you choose yes all the keyboard shortcuts and context menus act like Windows.
That said,Crossover Office,which also comes built into Xandros,would solve probably 80% of those returns IMHO. With Xandros you stick in the software disc,the wizard pops up,you go "clicky clicky next next next" and your Windows software is ready to go. Because I'm betting a lot of these folks stuck in their Windows discs and got mad when the software didn't go and returned it. I'm sure an OEM Crossover license wouldn't be that much when you are a large OEM like this so that would be an easy fix. But if they want their Linux to act like Windows they ought to put in Xandros. I have yet to run into a Windows user who couldn't adapt to Xandros very quickly.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Hmmmm...
Little hands-on experience with eee 901 xandros and wife:
- eee is very well set, up, hard to tell it is linux, and the gui is 100% locked up: good for average joe, but wife wanted to have thunderbird on 1st menu page, not 3rd - and off we go with wikis and the usual linux do-it-yoursel approach
- wife was very happy with games: more than windows, and coming witha tutorial, too!
- firefox, skype: no problem in there after I set up the accounts (easy: she used the same sw on win)
- ooo: complete failure. Being a math teacher, she relies heavily on inserting formulas in docs. The interface in writer might be a bazillion times better than in word, she still did not want to learn it. And all the options to disable automatic reformatting of text are not in the same menus, so disabling them also proved to be quite hard.
In short: the devil is in the details - every average user has a few specialized needs and expectations. Getting everything right - and making it as similar to windows as possible at the same time is an impossible task
Heh - you make good points.
I must add that my one friend recently got his atheros network card to work on gentoo. That was an entertaining three hours right there...
Other than that I must say that most of what you mention has been sorted out or largely sorted out in most of the mainline distributions.
I am a recent convert to gentoo - and I must add, us geeks have a penant for punishing ourselves, no?
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
But none of them is still running Xandros, the install, because it is horrid. Even the 'getting a proper desktop' package is no longer officially supported, and getting anything more exotic to work requires far more knowledge of Debian internals than I ever intend to acquire. A colleague has found some specific bugs, including the inability of the wifi manager to cope with WPA codes that include spaces and a reliable way of trashing the update mechanism simply by clicking icons in the wrong order. And the ones sold by Vodafone in France don't even have Skype.
With Kubuntu installed, and a few patches documented on the Ubuntu website to fix wifi et al, they are great. But that's not the linux that people get when they open the box.
Why does anyone expect Windows users not to want something that looks like a Windows desktop, which any linux distro could deliver if the hardware manufacturers hadn't knobbled it?
The one non-techie I know who bought a Dell laptop with Ubuntu installed is still happy with it a year later. But if Dell had been dumb enough to ship a dumbed-down version of Xandros, I'm sure she would have intalled XP by now.
Virtually serving coffee
Let's be honest here, though. If all you want is an appliance, Linux isn't any more difficult than Windows. Realistically—and I say this as someone who uses both Windows and Linux—it isn't even that different. Unless, as people above have mentioned, someone has rote memorized how to do (a large number of) specific tasks, the differences aren't worth mentioning. Linux isn't harder than Windows, and it's only different if you're doing "complicated" things (where I've defined "complicated" as things that differ in Windows and Linux ... ). People looking for an appliance—which, I thought, was the point of a netbook—shouldn't notice much of a difference.
You've pretty much described the reason the US has a 2-party "system"
I'm willing to bet that because the distros that are being shipped with these netbooks are rubbish. Take my eeepc 1000 for example. Came with some rubbish Xandros install what simply wasn't up to scratch. It had no standard feel to it. Firefox used Gtk, the explorer app was Konqueror. When I put Ubuntu on it, it immediately became more useable and more powerful. I bet if they shipped the machines with a more useable distro. The return rate would drop.
"I hereby agree that the computer I'm purchasing has Linux installed. I am aware that Linux isn't Windows. I won't complain that it has Linux installed, or pretend that I didn't know it has Linux installed before I opened the box, because I read the advertisement and it says Linux. I know that many Windows programs don't run on Linux, or need additional software to run on Linux. Again, I have been told that Linux isn't some sort of Windows."
It depends, VLC and mplayer work pretty good on Windows, maybe a little better on Linux. But they are Unix/Linux programs ported to Windows. So that's a bit like cheating.
New things are always on the horizon
Speaking as someone vaguely approximating to a musician, I can assure you that that is exactly what an awful lot of people do.
[FUCK BETA]
If someone is happy using, say, Word and Photoshop, what's attractive in hearing that Linux can't run Word and Photoshop but they can do pretty much the same things with Openoffice and Gimp, once they take the time to learn how to use them? Why should they do that when they can keep on using Word and Photoshop?
If you have already paid hundreds of dollars for Windows, Word, and Photoshop then there's absolutely no reason not to use them. But not everyone has that kind of disposable income. Some of us are on tight budgets, and some even take personal pride in beating the system by getting the best deal. Are we unusual? Not at all! Why do stores have sales? Why do coupons work? Why do people buy cheap goods from overseas when they could get more familiar name brands at a higher price?
The financial incentive is much, much more powerful than you think. The fact that you switched to Apple speaks volumes about how much you dislike bargain-shopping, and that's okay. Yet it is undeniable that bargain-shoppers are numerous, and it is to these people that the lower price tag of Linux machines will be most appealing.
This from somebody who can't figure out even how to blockquote correctly on /. -- even with a 'preview' feature.
The parent didn't say they couldn't, they indicated they didn't choose to learn Linux. That's quite a difference. S/he also seems to have a business (probably not run out of his/her parent's basement), seems to have an interest in art (you know, there are things in the world other than computers), and seems to be spending time improving his/her house (either as an investment or as a hobby - but it doesn't much matter which).
Your attitude reminds me of a toddler who has just learned how to tie their shoes and for the next week spends an inordinate amount of time untying and tying their shoes proudly in front of anyone who will praise them for "how smart they are". However, the toddler only does this for a week and then moves on to master other things -- you seem to be offended by others who decide to master more than one thing.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
If you're a power user, the increased control and efficiency you get from switching to Ubuntu will save you so much time in the long run that the slightly greater learning curve is a minimal cost to pay.
Really now? I tried a simple test website using Tomcat recently. On Vista, configure Tomcat, run startup.bat, click yes and it works. On Ubuntu, configure Tomcat, run startup.sh and it doesn't work. I spent several hours trying to find a way to get it working without having to run Tomcat as root and I couldn't do it, but did you know that Apache had to be split into two processes to get around the stupid port 80 restriction? I bet they felt pretty efficient working on that.
Slashdotters have been absolutely ripping their own heads off by grinning at how much market share the monopolist Apple has been picking up the last few years.
However... Lunix users in the know are tearing their hair out and peeing their pants, because they see the numbers and realize Apple's gains are coming primarily at the expense of Lunix. Despite all Slashdot's desperate anti-Vista FUD over the years, Windows market share is STILL not coming to Lunix. If anything, it's just making them stick with XP, which isn't even close to the desired effect (especially since "Windows Mojave" has given the Lunix Propaganda department a black eye which may never heal).
The root of the problem is, was, and always will be that Lunix advocates are working so desperately to tear down Microsoft that they neglect their own product. Now, something better than Teh Lunix comes along as an alternative, and the non-kool aid drinkers are leaving Teh Lunix on Teh Desktop in droves: even Lunix's own "Desktop Guru" has quit in frustration (the fact that he walked out the door blaming his lack of programming skill on Microsoft notwithstanding).
People are tired of waiting decades for Teh Lunix to "mature"... and therein lies the problem. Everyone is waiting, like it's magically going to happen. The reality is, it's not. Lunix is too fragmented, and has zero incentive to improve: it's die-hard user base is completely happy with it, and there is no incentive for any of them to sit down and do the little boring stuff which will improve the OS for everyone who isn't ALREADY completely fulfilled by Teh Lunix. Rather than fixing the font problem or the wireless issues or whatever, it's far more fun to spend that time making the one zillionth text editor for Lunix, or rip off another cool idea Microsoft came up with. But nobody wants to do the boring tedious work, like getting auto-detect and auto-install of hardware to work, etc etc.
I'd beg to differ. Most people wanting to use a computer like a TV don't want to be bothered searching on forums, running scripts so that they can get Flash to work on their browser.
It's becomming rarer and rarer nowadays to have to do stuff like that, but it still occurs more with Linux than, say Windows.
..........FULL STOP.
Well, to put in more simple terms: Linux was designed. Windows just happened.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Yes, Linux's design is more secure than Windows, at least through XP. (I exclude Vista only because I don't know much about it, not because I believe it secure.)
See here and here and here for more information.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Having used computers for a little more than two decades, it's given me a bit of perspective.
One. Users generally aren't stupid, but they're often ignorant. There's a big difference between the two, and it would be wise for the average geek to understand this.
Two. The 'usefulness:frustration' ratio for your average human being is very lopsided.
If the competing product is less frustrating than your favored product, no matter how much better your product is on paper, in reality, it's the functional equivalent of having the better gadget that happens to only work while inside steaming pile of excrement.
I see people rail on and on as to how linux is perfect, so the high return rate must just be due to users 'not getting it' or 'being stupid'.
It's a very 'not seeing the forest for the trees' problem.
How smart can you be if you fail to understand why people don't find linux to be a better choice than windows?
Ready for the desktop? HA! Ready for the hobbyist desktop, maybe. The desktop of a standard human being? Not even close.
And 'close' is the functional equivalent 'complete fail' in this situation.
Anti-intellectualism has nothing to do with it. I have MORE INTERESTING things to spend time doing instead of re-inventing the wheel (or in this case, the OS). If you get your jollys from spending time fighting to get Linux to do what Windows does out of the box, good for you. In fact, if you want to call names, I'd call THAT anti-intellectualism. Instead of using your computer do do things with, you spend half your time just getting the damn thing to work because you're too cheap to spend $200 on a Windows license. While you're at it, why don't you find a better substance for your car's tires than rubber? Maybe you can find something cheaper and better, huh?
What a completely and utterly pointless waste of time.
I don't respond to AC's.
We just received a bunch of these at my office. The pre-installed Linux was awful and no one could use them. Once I installed Debian with KDE they loved them and found them easy to use. They should quite trying to dumb them down with an interface reminiscent of Microsoft BOB.
The poster mentioned "fixing up [his] house" as an alternate activity with more value. How many "computer geeks" out there who fault people who don't know basic computer operations, don't know how to sweat copper pipe, or replace a light fixture and so don't have the skills to maintain their home?
How many "computer geeks" out there who complain about users who lack basic knowledge of their PCs, can't change their car's oil? How many can, but say "I have other, more interesting things to spend my time doing"?
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
First of all, your example isn't true anymore. Before flash 9 was released on linux, no amount of forum trawling would have helped. The simple fact of the matter was that you needed flash 8 to play flash video, which was never released on linux. Now that flash 9 is out, you can install it and it just works.
Second of all, an appliance should ship with everything working. That is to say, with some kind of flash installed, or a script that runs on first bootup that will go and install things for you, if, for instance, they can't ship with the plugin for licensing or whatever reasons.
Look, I run linux on my laptop. It can be a pain. It was certainly a pain to get started. I can totally understand that 99.9% of computer users don't want to deal with that. However! That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about an appliance—a toaster, if you will. Anything that wants to be an appliance needs to ship ready-to-go out of the box. If it isn't, then it's a failure, but that doesn't have anything to do with linux.
Power users are putting Windows and other distros on them and getting them to do tricks the manufacturers wish they had thought of.
No, the people who are returning them are probably confounded as to why the unit came with a DVD but no DVD drive. Or they spend 10 minutes squinting at the small screen and can't stand it anymore.
That said, my Eee 4G 701 is running XP SP3, goes everywhere I do and gets used daily.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
I'm not sure about the notebooks in questions (didn't RTFA), but most computers that come pre-installed with linux already have everything set up. Flash, MP3, Mpeg, etc all work out of the box, just like their windows counterparts.
In fact, I recently got my grandmother using linux. She know absolutely NOTHING about computers, she couldn't tell the difference between Firefox and Google. After setting up the system (I did no more than any box-office store would do), the only things she has phoned me about fixing are forgetting her password and using the new office program (she was used to using deprecated office 95 tricks that even needed to be enabled in 2000), I even showed her in about 30 seconds, how to use her tax return program in a virtual machine (she is a professional income tax person, so she uses CanTax)
All in all, I think that linux IS ready for the desktop, as long as it is set up properly to start with (as any windows machine would be).
But most of the Linux-based netbooks (including my AAO) come with a SSD instead of a standard hard drive. The only reason I would return mine would be to get the hard drive-based version and then just put whatever OS I desired on it, just because the SSD has been such a gigantic let-down. (Seriously, 22Mbps hdparm result...c'mon!)
My switch to XUbuntu was due to just such a blunder - the custom ASUS crap ran into a circular dependency in something (perl? python?) which caused the updater to stop working when I tried to fix it using ever more extreme methods. I don't miss it, but had I been incompetent, it would have been a return.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
Plenty of people can't really handle setting up an internet service. It has to be done by the ISP support team, and most of them upon seeing a Linux netbook will likely say it's not supported.
The same goes when they want to connect most pieces of equipment. Although Linux will support far more devices straight out of the box, just about every device will come with easy to install Windows drivers. I've never seen an equally easy to install Linux driver.
I'd not be surprised there is a high return rate until these issues can be resolved.
OS X + XP under parallels at 70+% native speed on a cheap used intel Mac FTW!
I thought I'd be putting Linux as a secondary disk image for parallels and then scratched my head and wondered if it would bring me ANY new apps and concluded it wouldn't. While I support GNU, Stalman, etc, there are limits of how much effort I am willing to go through for idealism when it brings no new functionality and I can run all my open source software on OS X or Xp.
For a server OTH Linux all the way baby!
Still I am glad RMS is out there fighting DRm and proprietary software and if things get too restrictive I am truly glad Linux on the desktop is there as an alternative. But for NOW it doesn't seem too necessary other than as a purely ideological choice, shrug.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Right now the ONLY logical reasons to move to a Linux based PC is 1) cost and 2) boot time when run in minimalist mode. Otherwise an XP machine is far better for the availability of apps and consistency of experience.
Linux will actually work if installed on a SSD storage?
vi +
Microsoft. Office.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
.
No they didn't.
What you had were small communities built around hopelessly incompatible systems from Apple. Atari, Commodore, Texas Instruments, etc.
The numbers were never as big as the Geek remembers them.
The C-64 was remarkably successful in the 8-bit era with 30 million sold.
Windows in 2008 has one billion users.
When you started using computers, you became computer literate, just like everyone's more or less washing-machine-literate and DVD-player-literate
No you didn't.
You became application-literate.
Magazines like Creative Computing and Compute faded into the background as computers became more powerful and applications more sophisticated and professional.
People stopped looking "under the hood" for the same reason their grandparents abandoned the Tin Lizzy for a Ford V-8. The machine was complex and powerful - delivered a comfortable ride - and if you needed a mechanic, there was always a garage.
Of course, this has now bitten Microsoft too: it's one reason why Vista and Office 2007 are so unpopular.
Microsoft is the first industrial company to earn a AAA credit rating in 10 years.
Office 2007 flies off the shelves - the 700 pound gorilla in PC software sales regardless of platform.
It's bigger than games, bigger than anything.
Vista has 18% of the desktop market, based not on licenses sold, but users on the web. Top Operating System Share Trend
No really, I'm dead serious. Office 2007 is a triumph in user interface design.
The "problem" isn't 2007. The problem is that previous versions of Office had a really BAD interface, but it's a really bad interface that many users have none-the-less gotten used to.
If you just banish everything you know about Office 2003 from your brain, finding anything in 2007 is a piece of cake - it's exactly where you'd intuitively expect it to be, it's a lot less clicking to get there, and there are a lot less unnecessary pop-up windows.
paintball
People buy them and then try to install Windows software. This works on XP, but doesn't work on Linux (of course). Dismayed, customers return their Linux netbooks.
Not people who just want their web browser to work and write letters with the word processor and little else.
Who exactly are these mythical people who only want to do that with a computer?
Even my grandmother expects to do more with her computer, and she's 90 years old. Don't you realize that just about everybody has digital cameras, digital music players and digital video cameras these days? Your comment is like saying that there's still a lot of people who just want to buy a typewriter.
Even if such people existed, do you think they'd be the ones seeking out an ultra-portable notebook computer that's in short supply?
... and then they built the supercollider.
When i read your last paragraph, i became enraged. But, not you, but rather, at Slasdot, for these damned lax submission shits.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Oh the irony.
Just reading this and reading comments on newbies messing up. I'm about to turn in but as I'm travelling decide to do something about the fact my eee login isn't password protected. Using the desktop interface I set the password and transform it into an electric brick. A trip through a less salubrious part of Athens to a late night internet cafe see the forum answer as "there's a bug in the application".
I'm a unix/linux user/admin of 18 years, and the software stiffs me. I'm now typing on factory-reset eee in the same hotel lobby I made the mistake. What would the 'average user' think of a pre-installed software tool that simply knackers their pride and joy?
I linked to the business one because that is what I use,but for 99% of the folks out there the $39 home edition would work perfectly. I needed Business for the AD and Exchange support,which for 99.99% of those using Netbooks would be a non issue.
As for the why? On my Dell Latitude with a measly 512Mb of RAM it never crashes,never gets buggy,never suffers from bitrot,logs on to the AD networks faster than my laptop did running XP,allows me to run my MS Office 2K out of the box so I can deal with those funky formatted word docs I always end up with,was the only one out of 40 distros I tried to support my satanic Broadcom 4318 out of the box,required zero setup after installation beside the first run wizard,etc.
If you are like me and don't have the time to spend countless hours on the forums and cursing the CLI trying to get some piece of hardware to go then Xandros is for you. I have run both the Home and Business editions and both are really install and go. And of course being able to let any member of my family on it without having to worry about viruses,spyware,driveby malware,etc is a really nice bonus. Oh and unlike XP you are allowed to install it on as many computers as you own for non commercial use as well as one for commercial use. Which was great for me since my sis can screw up a Windows box faster than you can say "Oh Crap!". Oh and you do get support when you buy Xandros,I just can't recall off the top of my head how long for each edition.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Oh, I have my Atheros card working just fine. They do have a fairly capable Linux driver, called Madwifi - it worked pretty much out of the box for me (well after the compile - of the SVN version, the last stable doesn't seem to work with the latest kernel), is your friends' card not supported by it? But anyhow, its HAL is not FOSS. Hence it doesn't get included in Fedora. The good news is that they have actually just recently open sourced a HAL. Props for that, but, for whatever reason, it's NOT the same HAL that was used in Madwifi. Go figure.
Back on topic, I don't agree that most of the stuff I mention has been sorted out in major distros. AFAIK, Fedora doesn't ship *any* non-free software in any of their official repos - so no proprietary codecs, drivers, etc (yes there are unofficial repos, but that's beside the point, we're talking about an average desktop user). My experience with Intel and XV playback was on the latest Ubuntu, Hardy Heron. They patch their driver to use the old XAA rendering by default, which is faster for compositing but for some reason messes up XV. I was on Hardy until a few weeks ago, and stopped because the KDE4 they shipped was... not so great. I'm sorry, but I can't use GNOME - it'd be almost as bad as using Emacs :P I'm not sure about NetworkManager though, I don't even bother trying it out these days, wicd works great for me.
OpenSuSE, from what I remember, also didn't have the Atheros drivers. Don't know what's their policy now.
I'm on Arch now, and I like it a lot - it's like Slack with dependencies. I haven't used Gentoo though. Where do I hand in my geek card? :)
What distro are you using? I am really interested since I haven't come across this until I recently started using gentoo - now there is something only the bravest of geeks should try... with most of the mainstream distro's though your issue should be sorted out - or at least have a plan in place to sort it out.
Various versions of Fedora from 3 through 7 or 8. I went back to Windows only at the beginning of the year, when I got a new video card—Cygwin was enough for my schoolwork, and with the new hardware there wasn't enough performance gains in games to justify the effort anymore.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
The biggest Linux problem is program compatibility and gaming. If this wasn't a problem just what would the return rate be then. I don't care what people use and i certainly don't care about zealots from either side. If i spend good money on a computer,i want it to run my programs and i also don't want to use some other kind of software to replace what i have. That would be just wasting money. A computer is a tool,and if it doesn't run my tools i don't want it. It has nothing to do with learning.
Jack of all trades,master of none
What part of that was humble?
People have better things to do with their lives than learn a new OS. Vista's learning curve from XP sucks but learning most Linux distros from XP is harder. Where's the Control Panel? At least that much carries over in Vista.
People don't "stop learning," they go learn things that are more important to them.
Wow, talk about spin. The return rates are higher for Linux, yet "most people are quite happy with Linux?" What a leap.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Welcome to the angry antisocial Linux community, ladies and gentleman--where wanting to get things done instead of spending all night configuring an OS is "anti-intellectualism," and having more interesting things to do is a "misguided rush."
You're a "drone" if you want to use software that already works. Good luck spreading that message, Linux users.
"Sufferin' succotash."
If you get your jollys from spending time fighting to get Linux to do what Windows does out of the box, good for you.
or rather, linux users don't like fighting windows to do things that linux can do out of the box, from a straight up install most people using windows install nero, vlc etc to do things linux does straight up. Getting windows to be able to do similar functionality as linux is not a trivial task if you use linux heavily.
I can do all of the above and do so, what I think you will find is the same kind of tinkerers who always have to know how everything works not only become computer geeks, but tend to DIY a lot more, up to the point it becomes non feasable.
So how many people have chosen to get rid of Vista on their new computers in favour of XP compared with how many people returned Linux netbooks?
That's valid for the 1,000 people in America who actually need some obscure function, but no big deal for the rest of us who are completely supported by Open Office.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
First, conform. Sorry, but you need to at least look and feel like the other OS.
Second, work right out of the box with everything and/or make driver installs as automatic as possible.
Third, linux has a huge collection of free products to do everything. Install them on the machine. Don't let them sit there and wonder "how do I open word documents?"... have a big window open up the first time the OS is run that explains how everything is done in big cartoon letters. This includes a professional grade email program, casual games, serious games, etc. Don't confuse them by making them think they need to go to the store to buy a new program. They'll not find anything linux compatible at best buy and then they'll return the machine. You have to give them all the common apps upfront, show them how they work, and then very clearly point out where new programs come from.
OR
Put a big red label on the machine that says "only for experienced linux users" and give up having it ever catch on in the consumer market. The big distributers will of course stop selling linux boxes at that point and will move to "blank" systems that let you install whatever OS you want. This is not to say that driver support will stop. But if you can't sell linux to joe sixpack then wallmart won't sell it.
If some hobbyists were to put together images of ubuntu netbook remix and similar for the more popular netbooks, with their fairly consistent hardware, then Joe-Six-Pack and Sarah-Hockey-Mom could do a simple "refresh install" themselves. Since many won't have optical drives, this would be best done by apps (Windows, Mac, and Linux) that automatically format a USB flash drive into a system recovery drive.
your damn straight that is why i run an OS that gets out of my way and lets me work.
OS X.
if I tell it to ignore an update it does. If I tell it to to open only my choice of web browser it does. If I want my documents to work on multiple platforms to converse with more people than MSFT office allows guess what it does.
I do have more interesting things to do than fart around with a computer that fights me with false positive WGA responses. I don't have an hour to spend with tech support because of such issues. Your choice in computers is like your restaurants. Just because you like McDonald's because they have served over a billion people doesn't mean that it is healthy for you.
Also finding a substance to replace rubber that also saves on gas isn't a waste of time. Bridgestone, and Michelin do just that to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Intellectual people know this.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
The poster mentioned "fixing up [his] house" as an alternate activity with more value. How many "computer geeks" out there who fault people who don't know basic computer operations, don't know how to sweat copper pipe, or replace a light fixture and so don't have the skills to maintain their home?
Your leaking pipes and worn-out light switch don't affect or inconvenience anyone other than you. Fix them at your leisure or not at all; nobody else will bother you about it.
If your computer is part of a botnet spewing spam across the Internet, it's a different class of problem entirely -- it affects thousands of people other than you. In fact, you may not even notice it happening....
I submit that the second is a much larger issue and more important problem than the first.
If you're a zombie and you know it, bite your friend!
As an avid Linux user and one who has worked with others, I think you have set up a strawman. Linux can be a wonderful operating system for people who want to learn the applications. The graphical applications are generally quite intuitive but will never be exact clones of the Windows counterparts. That is OK.
The real strength of Open Source software is when a motivated user has a need that will never fit the business case of a closed-source package. I have been there. As a scientist who does microscopy and image analysis to characterize materials, this is why I learned to program. My needs are different from those who just need to use standard apps. My coworkers and I recognize this. We simply point out to those who just need to use standard apps is that a little flexibility can save them a lot of money. Linux/OSS is all about user choice. Choice is good.
It's pretty obvious that you're trolling now. I'm sure you're aware of how many Linux users frequent this board and I'm sure you're aware that the majority of them chose Linux for reasons beyond being "too cheap to spend $200 on a Windows license." So, if you could take your troll attitude and toggle yourself to AC, it would be appreciated. :)
As a note, I'm defining you as a troll simply because you directly insulted a significant portion of the Slashdot population.
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
They've got more important things to do than learn the rudiments of communication with mere mortals, don't you understand that?!? Why, who knows what earth-shaking revelations are to be found after compiling and installing the latest bleeding edge Linux kernel... *grin*
Yes, that's sarcasm, for those that missed it.
I have to comment on your .sig. How exactly is piracy ethically no different from mob looting a store whose locks were broken? Your analogy is missing something. Try "mob looting a store that has an infinite supply of something and pays nothing for it." You seem to be missing the specific points between theft and copyright infringement (there is a reason courts still don't call it theft). Media can be infinitely reproduced at no cost to the creator. Throws that whole supply and demand thing out of whack, doesn't it?
What day is it? Could you please tell me?
That's your humble opinion? I'm curious... what's your not-so-humble opinion?
I'm a computer geek.
I've replaced light fixtures. I've replaced switches. I've installed completely new light fixtures and electrical outlets.
I've replaced shingles, windows, carpet, and hardwood floor.
I've replaced automatic dishwashers, run water lines to feed a new fridge with an automatic icemaker, and cut my own trim for floors, doors, and windows when redecorating various rooms in my house.
I've changed the oil in my car, and not only that, I've swapped out entire engines before, and also rebuilt them. I've also changed transmissions, including converting a car from an automatic to a manual. That was fun. I generally do my own brake jobs, and I'm shortly going to be replacing a wheel bearing on my current car.
I've assembled a motorcycle engine out of a box of parts, and put the entire thing in the bike.
There are those of us who learn absolutely everything we need to know to do whatever we need to do in life, and I can guarantee you, the people who refuse to learn anything at all outside of their particular specialty, frustrate the hell out of me. Although, these types of people, in my experience, usually don't even do their own specialty very well.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
Like if Windows was that good.
Inertia is the word you need.
People prefer to continue in the current state of suffering rather than to try something new that may or may not be better.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
PCs sold as appliances, irrespective of the OS, will have Flash, Real Player, PDF reader , Java VM and any other necessary software.
The EeePC is just like that, as are several other Linux appliances in the market.
This scaremongering is frankly tiresome, bring on real issues to have a meaningful discussion, lack of basic software is no longer an issue in most situations.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Ubuntu, Fedora (and thus RH) SuSE and several others solved this problem some years ago.
With thousands of applications already packaged for you the only think that needs to be done is start your package manager, search for the application you need, select it and install it (all with a graphical interface, I mention this because there is always some dumbkopf that claims all this done in a terminal).
I do work with the command line for a living, but when I get home and learn that there is a cool application out there 19 out of 20 times it is already packaged for me, ready to be installed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
So I fail to see why you would need the Gimp (keeping in mind the aim: just to show and organize pictures).
YOu can't blame Asus regarding your wishes, the movie conglomerates are the ones stopping other comapnies serving your their precious content.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I suspect the comment on "power users" referred to the ability to tweak the OS. It's not trivial but not terribly difficult to set up a repeating scheduled task that runs with another user's permissions in either OS, but it's *DIFFERENT* in Linux (it's the same in Vista as in XP). There's nothing really equivalent to Windows' Device Manager on Linux that I've found in nearly 3 years. It's tricky to get used to typing / instead of \ in the CLI, for $DEITY's sake!
Then there's the completely random stuff. If I bring my Linux box up with the wifi hardware switch off, the OS doesn't detect it correctly. I found how to correct this through exploration and trial-and-error, but in windows it's a non-issue. While it can be fun to tinker, sometimes it's preferable that the thing just work under all circumstances (there's a setting that seems to enable this, but it wasn't the default after a driver update).
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Four times higher? That could mean 4 in a thousand are returned instead of 1 in a thousand. Doesn't really mean much without knowing the absolute percentages.
personally don't like notebooks and have never bought a computer all my life. i usually drag out old server boxes from the container at the universitie's IT department to work with, so i have no experience with the hardware mentioned. it's a scandal, if they are really configured that bad. everybody involved with linux should know what a typical desktop user needs. firewall, office apps, browsers, database, movieplayer, gimp, bitorrent, nicotine, dvd burner etc. it should not be a problem for a linux wiz to make a "simple" script, which installs and configures all these apps and provide some neat collection of browsable docu with it. if distro xyz wants to see their "product" on a eeepc or whatever, why don't they care for it? average joe, as he is called, has really no clue how to do that. i've never used anything else than linux, but it took me about 2 or 3 months to learn the most important stuff before i could plug several machines together or do something useful on the command line. the average user does'nt got the nerves to learn all that stuff, but he will be surprised and happy if it is done for him already. a friend of mine, a farmer who used windows for several years, wanted his pc reinstalled because XP has gone loony. i'm a Debian user, so that's the OS i've installed for him. i took me one day to install and configure everything for him and he loves it. he's a soulseek user, so he got nicotine. he needs to do office work, so he got openoffice. he likes movies, so he got VLC and libdvdcss2 :-). he called me only twice during the last half year. once because a python library bug took down nicotine, the other thing was a new harddrive he bought and wanted to get connected. that's the proof for me that linux is in fact user friendly, at least as long as somebody takes care of it. it's a shame if these netbooks are sold poorly configured and without proper promotion/information...
You're willing to go as low as 90%?
I agree with the parent, and all the other replys are missing the point.
It realy isn't that dificult to change from windows to linux. Once, I fixed my Mother-in-laws computer, and while I had it installed kubuntu as a dual boot so that it would be easyer to repair when windows inadvertantly broke again. Six months later, I asked her how the computer was doing, and she said it was fine, faster than normal even, but "looked funny". I discovered that I had forgoten to change the defualt OS in GRUB, and she had been using linux for months *without noticing*. And before you say things like she never used it, she conneced to the internet every day religusly to get check for email from her son in Australia, and even set up her own email account (thunderbird running in both OSs).
The problem isn't that people aren't willing to learn (I've found that if you pay more than $100 for somthing, you learn how to use it as more than a door stop), it's that programs don't work in linux. Pull a CD out of the bargin bin at wallmart and see if your mother-in-law can get it installed on linux (mine can't), but I'm willing to bet they can get it to work on windows (she can do that, which is what broke it the first time).
Read my blog you know you want to
My sig is about the ethics of piracy, not the distribution costs. I purposely included the word "ethically" to avoid responses like yours. However, since you brought it up, why do Slashdotters insist that piracy isn't theft, yet when someone is violating the GPL, you guys call it "stolen code?"
Clearly, just because something can be digitally copied doesn't mean it has no value--it certainly has a lot of value to the person who created it to try to make a living, which pirates want to make sure doesn't happen by freeloading off their work.
"Sufferin' succotash."
Personally I think its the little things that matter. I haven't used linux on the desktop in years (every now and then I look at it sure, but I haven't taken it seriously) however I use it regularly as a server at work and at home. It doesn't have to look like Windows for it to compete - it just has to work as easily as Windows (or OSX for that matter).
For instance I was impressed to see in unbuntu that had a preference to change the screen resolution (it didn't work... but its the thought that counts). I think if a user figures that they can't setup their monitor - how hard is the rest of the OS going to be to use?
Another example - how hard is it to setup a distro so that when I hit backspace or delete it actually works as expected? Most distro's this is true - in most cases, but you'll run into an app eventually or a terminal somewhere where its not.
Printing has gotten easier for some applications - others not so much - it really depends on what toolkit the app uses.
And I know the reply is going to be well - you just have to do xyz, or change this config file, or use this distro - and while thats ok for me, probably not so much so for a product (Linux) that is supposed to compete with Windows and OSX.
wasn't worth the bother it seems.
It doesn't really matter. The point is that Linux is better from a malware perspective, right now.
Personally, I think Linux has a better design - otherwise I believe all those pesky Linux servers running Apache would be part of the malware pattern. But even if that were not the case, switching to Linux today rids you of the malware problem today - and for the (admittedly short) forseeable future.
Yes, I am a biological organism. All rumors to the contrary are just that, rumors.
most people could buy an xbox and be happy with it. most complaints I receive about difficulties on pc are from people who don't knows a shit of what they are doing, as installing tons of virused warez from emule.
pc are tools, and as tools are hard to use effectively, and need to be used by knowledgeable people.
you won't go mess around with a metalworking lathe.
Our local high school has free-issued EEE PC's to all its students. It's interesting to note their reaction as a user group of widely varied aptitude
Almost all of them got a very poor first impression of the device because of it's god awful desktop. Silly stuff like the cross shaped cursor, and GEM 1.0 style menus. User bias like this often leads to returns when things get difficult. If the user thinks it's a POS then they won't bother to learn how to use it. Why not put KDE on there so it at least looks vaguely familiar to them.
Support for wireless networking is abymsal, setup is clunky and you need to be a power-user type of person to overcome the limitations of this. This means it's almost impossible for most of the kids to set these up to use a secondary network at home after the primary school network is locked in. Connection to the school network took three patches to get it working.
It's a shame the people who discuss Linux loudly as an alternative consumer OS still look at it from a power user viewpoint, instead of the average "ignorant" member of the public's view. Usability vs Windows is still the primary barrier to consumer acceptance of Linux, and unfortunately it looks like most of these webbooks are confirming this very point. Give the user what they want - easy wireless networking setup, automated updating that works, a pretty desktop and multi-protocol IM that works properly and returns will dramatically reduce.
Real happiness lies in the completion of work using your own brains and skills.
I agree with this completely.
But here we part ways. If people don't care about their OS (and most don't), and just want an information appliance (and most do), then it follows that the important thing is not in fact "looking and feeling like Windows," but rather rather "facilitating the stuff they want to do." I don't think people care about Windows any more than they'd care they were running Linux. Whichever one did a better job of facilitating the stuff they want to do (which is a whole other debate that I'm not trying to enter here).
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I can understand clients returning the netbooks because Linux looks different from WinXP, and they don't want to take the time to learn it... But try sticking Vista on those netbooks and see if the results are any different. I would venture to say that clients will return the netbooks because Vista looks and behaves different from WinXP, and they don't want to take the time to learn it... Just a thought! :D
Totally agreed. The only reason I keep an XP install around is because I can't give up Civ 4. Why anyone would want to go out of their way to suffer through that UI without even being able to use the applications is completely beyond my ken.
Seriously? I invariably find it to be the other way around. Maybe it's my search queries.
Oh, now I get it. You're just a troll. Never mind then, sorry to interrupt.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Then what the fuck are you doing on Slashdot, man? Do you even know what we talk about here?
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
I like how I get modded off-topic, but the grandparent post who first brought it up is left alone.
"Sufferin' succotash."
First off, the post you replied to didn't mention Linux or Windows. They just said that we should probably know how to operate the machines we own. Which is true.
Second, speaking as someone who doesn't drive an automobile, there is nothing remotely resembling "turn the key and go" going on there. There's a lot going on there, an awful lot demanded of the operator, and a hell of a lot of pressure on you to not screw it up. That's why you have take a test and get licensed by the government and the police can stop you if you're doing it wrong. I find it nerve-wracking as hell, I just refuse to do it.
Computers aren't simple either (and if you think Windows "just works," I'd love to know what kind of work you mean). Computers, like cars, are complicated, sometimes demanding, sometimes even potentially dangerous machines. Maybe in 20 years we'll have driverless cars and computers we can talk to, but we're not there yet. Until we do get there, we as members of society have an obligation to learn at least the bare minimum required to operate one without being a danger to those around us.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
You're out of your mind. Windows doesn't do anything out of the box.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
Wow, talk about spin. The return rates are higher for Linux, yet "most people are quite happy with Linux?" What a leap.
Ho hum. Does this really need explaining? If you have a 4% return rate for Linux and 1% for Windows, *most* people (i.e. 96%) are (apparently) happy with Linux despite the return rate being 4x greater.
My god, your comment opened my eyes in a way hitherto unimagined. They are just a bunch of idiots tooling around with only the dimmest of understanding about the world around them. I mean, I already knew that, but you made me visualize it in a new light:
Now I'll forever see all the retards around me as four year olds operating big Cozy Coupes. "Wheeee! I make car go VROOM! UH OH! Needs gas now! All done! BEEP! BEEP!"
And I thought my general contempt for most of mankind couldn't get worse...
The real problem is that xandros releace that comes with eee pc sux like a vacum cleaner. No repositories, no desktop, no home folder, no start button. +bugs and no updates that fix them. My friend who got this on her laptop is very unhappy. You want a normal distribution try eeexubuntu instead.
So the REAL return rate is 1:1
move along....
I beg to differ. BSD was designed. Linux was grown. About Windows, I'm not even sure.
Of course it runs NetBSD. BTC: 1NT7QvbetmANwaMzhpVL6
Hi Guys, Check out this www.portable-os.com , It's cool and being a linux noob got me started on Linux.
Because of iNTEL?
Because of 10.5?
I am not buying new Apples because of iNTEL. I'd even buy one with AMD, but I'm not funding yet another out-of-control monopolist.
I am not buying 10.5 because they have removed Classic.
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
I mean, individual salesweasels. Cow-orker went across to Currys to pick up a Acer One, and reports that the salesweasel was virtually begging with him not to buy it because it ran Linux. Presumably their sales system can tie returns to individual salesweasels, and they're getting pressure to not sell these devices to Sarah Sixpack.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
You can't find the calculator? You say you've been using SuSE & KDE, also my fave Linux version except that I'm using OpenSuSE 11 & KDE 4. I've used SuSE since version 7 days & I've never had a lot of problems finding the calculator. Your comment is more a dreary statement about yourself than Linux.
BTW, I started with the Commodore 16 which I ditched within about 3 months as being useless.
I've bought an EEEPC 901, and I must say that it's Xandros dist is terrible.
It's broken from boot (one of the three repositories doesn't work) and you lack a whole bunch of tools which can be useful and it's not very intuitive to use (why they skip the desktop, I'll never know).
If the other netbooks have as gimped installs, I can definitely see why they would be returned.
Oh, btw, installing a new OS on it is a really big hassle, I still haven't succeded with any of my external disc readers or any flavor of linux I've been able to put on my usb memory.
So, no wonder they are pissed, as shipped, it is not a very good machine at all.
The bad thing is, I'm likely to be fighting both OSs. Linux can often be a PITA to install, and a lot of stuff is likely to not work right. Windows annoys the h*ll out of me with messages, antivirus usually sux, and a lot of stuff is likely to not work right.
It's not a question of finding an OS that doesn't suck, it's a question of which types of suckage I can deal with.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
If Linux is this unoptimized, I wonder if the Windows version is any more optimized? Do Windows users just settle for it? If there is any Windows user of these computers, I be curious to hear their opinion.
Sales Pitch: Linux increases your ROR
RTFM is not a radio station.
Probably because "Slashdotters" aren't a single person. But you know that, yet you're acting as though it isn't true because you know you can't produce any examples of anyone who has done what you describe here. This makes you a liar.
Every app? The only apps I've not gotten working under Vista were Daemon Tools (mainly because I was holding onto an old, non-adware version which I ended up replacing with VirtualCloneDrive) and RealVNC (client works, but the free server doesn't work; newer versions of UltraVNC might work and are free-as-in-speech, but I've not tested them). OTOH, stuff like Acrobat Reader 5 (fewer annoyances than later versions) and Office 2000 installed just fine on it (Acrobat Reader threw up a compatibility warning on installation, but you can safely ignore it AFAICT).
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
You appear to have completely misread what I said; you'd need to replace every app migrating to Linux, not to Vista.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
I thought ASUS users just replaced their Linux with Windows in most cases. I have not seen MSI's Linux installation, but the ASUS version of Xandros on my daughter's Eee PC 4G is an unusable piece of crap. The most basic things don't work properly. A few of the snags I've run into:
Never seen such a mess before. If I were not an experienced Linux user myself, I'd have returned it. If MSI's is even worse than that, then wow... just wow.
You can configure your network so that it connects automatically when you restart your eeepc...
Dialog windows are just as big in windows XP, only difference is you can't drag the windows with alt+click in windows so in windows it IMPOSSIBLE to click OK in some dialog screens. The small screen resolution is not linux 's fault and it's great that in linux you can at least drag the screen around!
Flash is a load of crap under linux but that's adobe's fault, nog linux's fault.
Antivirus and skype i don't use so don't know about that. The software update panel only shows items when there are updates available.
The messenger windows opens when you click the icon in the systemtray.
I see a lot of things that have gong wrong but just not looking at it long enough and certainly a lot of things that are easily sovable when you would have taken longer thant 2 minutes staring at it.
So it would appear...never mind.
20 January 2017: the End of an Error.
How many "computer geeks" out there who complain about users who lack basic knowledge of their PCs, can't change their car's oil? How many can, but say "I have other, more interesting things to spend my time doing"?
On the other hand, how many people expect any car mechanic, plumber, or electrician friends or relatives to render their services for free, as many "computer geeks" included myself have experienced over the years? Very few, in my experience.
If I don't know how or can't be bothered to change my own oil or sweat my own pipes, then I pay someone else to do it. However, there is far too much of a tendency for "non-geeks" to be militantly ignorant about computers, where they stubbornly refuse to learn *anything* about how to use them, and to further expect that someone who *does* know to "just fix it" out of the kindness of their hearts.
Like HeatherD posted above, I refuse to do it anymore. If you want to remain entirely ignorant about your computer, then pay the full freight for professional tech support and see how valuable the time saved by not investing in knowledge of your computer truly is.
Momentarily, the need for the construction of new light will no longer exist.
For the average customer, WinXP is still a wise investment for about $50. I have an eeePC and have been using Linux on my desktop PC for a while, but there is no way in hell I would recommend either to a non-geek.
The default Xandros on eeePC is pretty useful if you are happy with the default set of applications (and 6-12 month old versions). But if you try to update anything, the system falls apart and you have to spend hours cleaning up the mess in text editors and using obscure command lines.
I use my PC mainly for watching movies, managing my pictures, browsing the internet, downloading the occasional torrent, and instant-messaging with people. Of these tasks only web browsing and torrenting works out of the box.
- Instant-messaging sort-of works, and while there are a dozen different MSN clients, none of them provide more than 60% functionality.
- You can upload the pictures from you camera, but the USB support is still laughable:
1. on the best days copying from an SD card is maybe half as fast as under windows, and sometimes it's tenth or less
2. some USB card readers just flat out don't work under Linux, or run at 50kb/s.
3. some brands of hard drives get corrupted (a vendor issue, for sure, but my mom shouldn't have to check linux advisories to figure out if she can connect a drive or not).
You can watch movies, but on my run-of-the-mill Nvidia 7800 card and 1920x1200 monitor it took three solid days of tweaking and tuning to get a 720p movie to play without major frame dropping and sound issues. Hardware mpeg4 acceleration is not available, so you can't do anything else while you are watching a movie. 1080p is just a dream. And with a composited desktop even 320x240 is just a distant, impossible-to-reach utopia.
So all in all, 2008 is just another year when Linux is not ready for the desktop. Maybe the 18th year will be the charm, if the netbook manufacturers start pushing the Linux community to address the basic functionality problems with hardware support. The developers just got too comfortable blaming lack of documentation for any kind of hardware issue. I understand this can be the case with specialized, advanced functionality like 3D acceleration in video cards, but a shoddy support for mainstream Intel USB controllers is much less excusable.
sounds like they've become the tool instead of the PC being a tool.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
You run Mac OS9? *bows down to new master*
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.
It is rare that I would not find the answer to a Windows problem for free and without a wait on the Web(i.e. question asked, answer already posted.) For a Linux installtion there is a very good chance that I will not find the answer, and that I will have to post a question on a Blog somewhere...
I don't know, I keep hearing this, and yet my experience is consistently the opposite.
The only times I've not been able to find a nice, clear solution to a Linux problem were when I was dealing with hardware that had just been released. Sometimes the solution is to a problem that is not exactly the same but similar enough that I can adapt it to my situation easily since all the config files are designed to be human readable.
For every single Windows problem I've had to deal with recently I've only been able to find a solution to something similar, but the solution seems to always involve putting some magic value into the registry, with no clues that help me figure out what magic value I need, even though I generally have a pretty good guess as to where it should go.
Both platforms have plenty of issues that seem to have no known solutions. I'll agree that Windows solutions tend to be written with a friendlier tone, but that doesn't really count for much when the information is basically useless to me.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Let's just say if Windows was a life form it would not be compelling evidence for Intelligent Design.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Most businesses that run Windows and have a competent IT department secure the computers as well: Nobody with any sense runs as Administrator (or equivalent), nor even Power User, on a general basis, unless their computer use demands it.
Sure, Microsoft insists on creating Administrator equivalent users on a fresh Windows XP install - doesn't mean they have to stay that way. We create standard images, and all of these things are taken care of before the computer reaches the user.
Every user account on my home computers runs using Least-privileged User Access (LUA) principles, and has since the days of NT Workstation - it's not difficult to set up, nor administer, and has only gotten better as time has passed. Every mainstream business application that I deal with uses the logged-in user's profile directory (or the user's personal registry) for its settings, and none require running as Administrator or equivalent.
For those few that do (games, mostly, these days), it's as easy as forcing the shortcut to prompt for Administrator credentials before it runs the program - no big deal.
Sure it does. It asks you to verify you have installed a legal copy. ;)
krenshala
This is very good news for me. I'll soon be able to pick up a new "refurbished" Linux netbook on woot.com for $200!
I'd say that was your general contempt getting -better-. ;)
krenshala
Sorry, but I think you got your figures backwards. Most people need Office in the sense that it works, they know it, and they're not keen on learning something else. Obscure functions don't enter into it. I've administered various tests using OpenOffice--the mom test, the grandparent test, the girlfriend test--and it fails every time. Trust me: if what I were saying were not true, I think you'd see a whole lot more people switching over considering Microsoft's licensing rates for MS Office.
Also, there are a lot of people outside of America, and some of us even use computers! Greetings from Berlin.
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
The word is "penchant", Sparky. Not "penant".
I've found this to be true as well. I often have people sending me files because they can't open them, whereas on my linux system they open up straight away. Microsoft Word documents are another matter though, and the linux support for these just isn't good enough yet.
It's just that I've never heard of a non-American really defend Office. Besides, have you tried the girlfriend-and-grandma test with OpenOffice versus Office 2007, which looks totally different than anything they've ever used before? Finally, if you must use MS Office, then you can get it for OS X - you don't have to have a PC.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
i call 'em microSerfs;-)
they use landmarks: turn left @ the bluebigbox store...and if the landmarks aren't there, they're clueless;-)
The floppy disk that you refer to was actually 3½" in size. 1.44 Mb is the marketing amount of floppy disks.
If equipment manufacturers want to move away from windows they will need to provide a distro that looks and feels like windows and I haven't seen any distro that has accomplished this.
I've fooled several people with an old version of PuppyLinux - it used to have a Win98-like desktop.
http://about.me/jimm.pratt