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If Windows 7 Fails, Citrix (Not Linux) Wins
Julie188 writes "Microsoft blogger Mitchell Ashley, who has been using Windows 7 full-time, predicts that Windows 7 will fail to lure XP users away from their beloved, aging operating system — after all, Windows 7 is little more than what Vista should have been, when it shipped two years ago. But eventually old PCs must be replaced and then we'll see corporations, desperate to get out of the expense of managing Windows machines, get wise. Instead of buying new Windows 7 PCs, they could deliver virtualized XP desktops to a worker's own PC and/or mobile device. Ashley believes that Citrix's Project Independence has the right idea."
Linux also has a PR problem. The average person (if they have heard of Linux at all, and most haven't) tend to think of it as something for anti-social geeks who will be mean to them if they ask for help.
I'm not saying that is the truth of the matter, just the common perception I have seen.
I, for one, am saying that it is the truth of the matter.
Before I switched to Linux for good, I tried to switch a lot of times. Perhaps half a dozen or so. They ALL, failed at the same point.
I failed at something essential for my desktop use (ie. getting flash plugin to work, getting MP3s playable, viewing .WMVs, getting graphics card drivers installed, etc.), googled a while, was able to find nothing that helped me and went to some forums I could find, asking for help. Then I EVERY SINGLE TIME got the same responses along the lines of "RTFM", "Read the manpages of these commands", "Just Google It", etc.
And seeing that I didn't understand the cryptic manpages at all, I hadn't found anything with google (Didn't know the right terms to google wit and even if I did, the results were long guides with more cryptic commands I didn't understand and didn't care to research when I wasn't sure they were going to help), etc... I gave up.
Linux community just isn't very helpful in general (anecdotal evidence aside. I am not saying that there would be no helpful people at all). What little helpfulness people might otherwise have, chanting of the mantra of RTFM (a term that should have never been) has killed it. Practically everyone of my computer-literate friends who haven't switched to Linux (most haven't) have tried it and had the same experience. Encountering a problem, not being able to solve it and finding no help.
Then, came Ubuntu. It's IRC channel was a good start and seemed to gather helpful people together (don't know if they are paid professionals or not). However, there is too much demand. All the time there are five times more people asking (and getting any answer slowly or never) than answering. Ubuntu forums, however, are a goldmine and for practically whatever problem I have with Linux, I can google and get some existing thread as a result on first page. And 90% of time, it solves the problem.
I have now been using Linux for over a year as my sole desktop at home (Vista at work) and can pretty easily do everything I need with it. However, I still bitterly condemn a large part of the community to the lowest depths of hell where they should be kept forever awake by devils whispering "RTFM" to their ears.
...This was far more than I intended to post, too.
And then you get people like me, where I use Linux instead of Windows because Windows just doesn't do what I want it to. Huge gap in software availability, and the performance hit is just abysmal. Gotta download all kinds of programs just to get a functional system, and then keep those programs updated by checking the web periodically and downloading and installing the new versions. Not to mention that multimedia on Linux just works. A single player for almost all files, instead of 15 different players to support everything you might want to do.
For every anecdote, there's a counter-anecdote.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.