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Microsoft Attacks Linux With Retail-Training Talking Points
DesiVideoGamer writes "Over at Overclock.net, a user has posted screen-shots from Microsoft's 'ExpertZone' training course entitled 'Linux vs. Windows 7.' This course is available to BestBuy employees and will make them eligible for a $10 copy of Windows 7 upon completion." The screenshots linked show at least some creative interpretations of the state of Linux vs. Windows on a wide range of things, from media playback and video conferencing to ease of updates to (of all things) keeping your PCs "safer." Most of the claims, though, aren't concrete enough to be perfectly refuted. Writes DesiVideoGamer, "I think I now know why, when I enter BestBuy, the employees say the odd lies that they do."
This course is available to BestBuy employees and will make them eligible for a $10 copy of Windows 7 upon completion."
Isn't this supposed to be an illegal business practice?
Fighting for the bottom feeders here aren't we? Linux in its current state on the desktop cannot compete with Win7.
OS X can and does.
It's completely unethical for bestbuy to go along with microsoft on pushing this course onto their employees.
A retailer is promoting products it *does* sell over products it *does not* sell?
Shocking. This is worse than the Holocaust. They are Nazis or Commies, whichever is worse.
I want a boycott, a Congressional investigation, a '60 Minutes' expose and a Papal encyclical.
TIA!
Everyone knows about Linux.
Not everyone gives a shit about Linux.
This will probably get me modded to hell by the FLOSSies, but what the hell, I got karma up the wazoo. You guys want to know why it makes sense to push Windows over Linux on just about everything? One sentence-lack of a stable ABI.
Walk into Best Buy, hell get online at their site and do a "virtual walkthrough". Can you tell which items will work in Linux, and which will be a royal PITA? Or which items worked in Ubuntu version X but got boned in Ubuntu version Y and now need major hoop jumping to get going? Nope, me neither, and that is the problem. Supporting Linux will bankrupt you, I know, because I have tried selling Linux quite a few times over the years, the last Ubuntu 9.04 IIRC( I suck at version numbers). There is simply NO way to tell your customers what peripherals are "safe" and will "just work" and which ones are just a giant PITA or will never work at all. It makes Linux a giant minefield where a wrong purchase equals a very expensive paperweight, and in 2009 there is just no damned excuse for it.
Sadly I believe this will NEVER ever be fixed, because its cause is rooting in those that treat Linux like a religion, rather than an Operating system, ala RMS. In this extremist camp it is 100% "source code or nothing!" with the leader RMS going so far as to use a rare Loongson ARM netbook, because that was the only thing that could be found that fit his militant idea of "free". Meanwhile an OS that I truly believe could have easily overtaken OSX sales and be really giving MSFT a run for its money and driving innovation, simply languishes at a measly 1%, and it is just a damned shame.
Just think about what an incredible game changer a stable ABI would be. Myself and all the other little mom and pop shops could have several models of Linux right beside the Windows machines, Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart would have no problems whatsoever with setting up Linux boxes for sale. Why would it be such a huge difference maker? Because retailers such as myself and them could tell customers to simply "look for the little fat penguin on the box" and know that with the penguin on the box it will "just work". Linux would no longer be the "research your living ass off before every purchase" and because the hardware manufacturers would be writing for the stable ABHI not only would the amount of Linux hardware shoot through the roof but the risk of "update foo broke my (insert hardware)" would be greatly diminished.
So please FLOSSies, quit with the "it a M$ conspiracy!" crap, get away from the militants with the "source code or nothing!" stance, and demand a stable ABI. Because as we have seen the "source code or nothing!" stance gets you exactly that from the majority of hardware manufacturers.....nothing at all. It is simply a statistical impossibility for hackers in their basements to reverse engineer the incredible amounts of hardware being released weekly. Sadly I think this is part of the reason old hardware is popular in Linux, because it takes awhile to reverse engineer all the pieces to make a stable machine. In my own little informal study of walking around Best Buy, Staples, and Walmart and writing down what was for sale there was an average of 23-30% that would actually work in Linux. The rest would be a royal PITA if you even got it to work at all.
Demand a stable ABI and upon its release I bet my last dollar that you won't be able to take 3 steps in those stores without bumping into something with a "little fat penguin" on the box, and guys like me will have just as many if not more Linux machines on the floor than Windows ones. Because the vast majority of hardware manufacturers, especially in the home markets, are NEVER gonna give you their code. It simply isn't in their best interests and it opens them up to the risk of litigation by patent trolls, which if you will notice the ones that have released source/specs (IBM, Intel, ATI, HP,etc) have huge patent warchests and more than enough money to crush most patent trolls. Will RMS pay my lawyer fees and indemnify me if I get sued
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
apt-get upgrade? I thought it was emerge -uDv world? No, wait, it's up2date --upgrade-to-release xx, isn't it? Crap, I'm wrong again, it's yum upgrade... or yum update, I forget which. I'll try the last one--dammit, now I'm getting some kind of GPG error, let me check the man page.
Note, I am a linux user in addition to a windows user (I love my CentOS boxes, they serve in roles I'd never trust to a Windows box) but the above comment "10 times simpler than windows" is just plain bullshit. If anything, on a stable system without any problems, windows update and the standard linux update mechanisms work equally well. If anything is wrong, all of them suck ass.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I think the poster has a significant point.
I think, you ARE the parent poster replying to yourself.
I recently decided to get myself an up to date Ubuntu capable laptop, that would run wifi, etc without 4 hours of installing ndiswrapper
If you need 4 hours to install a package, something is seriously wrong with you.
or other weird stuff from odd sites.
You mean, Windows drivers, right?
Wow, Windows astroturfers switched to attacking Ubuntu -- a distribution that is their actual competitor in consumer desktops and laptops, as opposed to relying on misdirection. Too bad for them, they have big fat nothing against Ubuntu -- as far as consumer OS distributions are concerned, it's miles ahead of them.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
What are you doing on this forum, instead go somewhere the other boys go to!
I still prefer linux, but every time i go through something like this, a part of me wishes I had gone for dual-booting with windows.
So why don't you? If you're on x86, there's no reason you can't bop over to BestBuy and bring home a copy of Windows instead of writing dubious contrarian posts in this thread? I mean you play the part of a frustrated Linux adherent pretty well, but the fact that you conveniently left out model numbers for your webcam and TV tuner makes me think that you're a 'turfer for MS. Me, I use a Commodore 64 with GEOS, so I just stay above the fray.
The CB App. What's your 20?