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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.
I'll take the damn course if it'll get me a $10 copy of Win 7.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
So what?
Linux vendors would do exactly the same thing. Who is to say which OS is safer for example? It entirely depends on what metric you use to measure it. If for example you look at number of "hacker" style compromises then Linux is the worse but if we're looking at automatic spyware infection then obviously Windows is almost the only OS in that category.
I don't blame Microsoft for selling their products. That is what a software company SHOULD do. The only reason these are "stories" is because people [incorrectly] feel Linux is a community effort and that any attack on Linux is an attack on this community. But when you look at the people who donate MOST Linux code you'll quickly discover that Linux is about as community as Windows is...
So really this is just a slam at the Linux Vendors who have the cash to answer it...
I'm thinking of buying a netbook as a second machine for net access and mobile broadband. Should I get one with XP or can I run Linux?
M Shuttleworth
Linux has an apparently friendly front end, but is very demanding if you go any deeper. Linux is like the Mooncup: a nice idea, but messy and not for the squeamish. In fact, Linux can be likened to a Mooncup-using redhaired hippie girlfriend who lives in a house in the country she built herself from twigs and has very strong ideas on how everything should be and has all her original body hair. The sex is fantastic, but only if she thinks the astrological conditions are perfect. The house has a hand-dug latrine, so she's propped a toilet bowl on top and thinks that's "user friendliness."
No, no. You would far prefer Windows. That's like a nice normal bottle-blonde girlfriend who has a proper office job and dresses cleanly from Primark and has a sweet smile and lives in a proper bedsit and knows everyone and how to act normally and is accepted in society. She gets headaches a lot and fits of rage where she smashes everything and there's an odd smell of decaying human flesh coming from the drains and the toilet backs up every now and then filling the entire block with sewage and bits of bodies, but this is entirely normal and nothing to worry about.
My four-year-old PowerBook G4 is putting itself into sleep mode and refusing to wake up. It gives a very unfriendly beep and a black screen when it is turned on. Taking out and replacing the memory will eventually bring it to life.
S Jobs
This is a known fault in the Macintosh line, where the keyboards were dipped in vats of herpes virus before being shipped. Mac OS X is well known to induce symptoms similar to tertiary syphilis in long-term users -- ask anyone with Mac-using friends. The G4 has an old PowerPC chip, and is obsolete because Apple has long since moved to Intel chips. So at least you can run a proper operating system like Vista on the new ones.
I have a PC bought from Dell, a proper computer company, and am running Microsoft(tm) Windows(tm) Vista(tm) Service Pack 1(tm). It's the best operating system ever in the entire universe and I can do anything those annoying Mac users and Linux nerds can. And Windows 7(tm) will be even better! I don't have a problem, I just wanted to tell you this to piss off those annoying anti-Microsoft trolls who keep commenting on your Guardian column.
J Schofield
This is an excellent start to a perfect computing experience. Make sure you have only genuine Microsoft software on the system, and donâ(TM)t ever use Firefox in case your penis shrinks -- Internet Explorer 8 guarantees you will get many useful email offers for a greatly increased penis with incredible sperm production capability. Also, Google will invade your privacy and put pictures of you masturbating on Google StreetView, so only use Bing. Happy surfing!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Sales and Marketing people have always been people incapable of coherent thought or doing honest work. They'll do whatever they can to get more money. The only thing worse than them are Executives.
But that's just how the world works, there's no use in lamenting this. It's certainly interesting to see this, but there's no need to act like this was some big surprise. Every company acts like this. A society composed of only honest people doing honest work probably wouldn't work - nobody has tried yet, though.
What's the cheapest way of getting Windows 7? Buy a new computer.
This is true. But...
With pre-loaded Win 7, all you get is a worthless "restore" CD. Running Windows really does require a full install CD unless you don't mind losing everything while reinstalling, which you *will* have to do now and then.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
No profit in free.
I disagree.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
I don't hate Linux (in fact, I run it on all of my machines), but this is why Linux has not become popular on the desktop.
The first reply to the topic says this:
"Um WOW. THeir full of them selves. And if something dose not work with linux you can compile your own code and make it work."
It's this kind of mentality that keeps Linux from becoming more accessible. Imagine that you install Linux for your mom, and she can't get so and so program to work, so you tell her to just go into the source and edit a few things and recompile it. That's just not going to work.
You are now manually breathing.
The way to refute an inconcrete reply is with an answer that is equally inconcrete. For example, in one of the slides, they say "Windows is safer than Linux." The quickest way to refute it is to laugh. You don't even need to answer. If they try to hit on an emotional level, hit back on an emotional level. Once they come back with a more concrete assertion, you can begin refuting it on a more concrete level.
"Windows is safer because it has parental controls." Ooh, check out that argument, a clear attempt to change the subject. A typical geek will start by trying to think of any Linux software that can handle parental controls, and if there isn't one, start thinking of ways to write scripts and set permissions that will simulate it. Easier way to handle it is to smirk slightly, and say, "yeah, like that will keep hackers out." Roll your eyes. Don't let them get away with ridiculous arguments.
On the other hand, Microsoft is right in some of their points, Linux has fewer games available, Linux has less software available, Linux has fewer drivers available. Those are my biggest complaints with Linux too. In fact, they may be my only complaints.
Qxe4
If anyone's interested in going to a local Best Buy on 9/19/09 with CDs and flyers and encouraging people to try gnu/linux on their laptops before they buy, visit http://trygnulinux.com/sfd09
If Microsoft thinks it's a worthy battleground, perhaps we should as well.
Linux in its current state on the desktop cannot compete with Win7. OS X can and does.
How exactly does OS X compete on the desktop once you consider even marginal gaming? Look at the department store value bins, the $10 section. People want their cheap maddens, their cheap puzzle games and for some reason their cheap Ghost Recon... Seems like DirectX is the de facto standard.
Outside of this one very specific issue I see both OSX and Linux as great alternatives to Windows. But unless Flash games are your end all be all none of these even try to compete. (and yes I am aware of what titles are available on these platforms, but it's far from an impressive list for either of them.) Once linux/mac software is available at Wal-Mart, then we might be talking.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
Can't say i ever had to do that with recent versions of Windows.
May 2005, ThinkPad R52 with Windows XP
December 2006, Upgraded ThinkPad R52 to Windows Vista
March 2007, Replaced ThinkPad R52 with T60 running Windows Vista
December 2009, Replaced ThinkPad T52 with W500 running Windows Vista
Juli 2009, Upgraded W500 to Windows 7
I recently updated a machine that had not been used in about a year. This machine is on a site license, using the standard MS products. In the update i was greeted wth the MS Office anti-piracy update, and warned that if I did not update I would not know if I had a pirated copy, and that if I did there might be security implications. Of course we had spent a great deal of money acquiring the software, and the update reminded that no matter what, MS could pull the plug at any time, and they would not consider this properly licensed software valid until I added this spyware to my machine.
The cool thing is that Google is taking this licensing deal to the next level with the cloud. The cloud, at least in it's free form, is not all that useful for people who want a little more control over their computers, but for those who are raised MS, it is the next logical step. For all those that have focused on the simplified MS development model, and MS controlled software and hardware, I wonder what they will do in if google has all the software on the backend, and users just have chrome laptops.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I am sure Best Buy is getting paid well for this, but ultimately it does hurt their reputation. One reason people go to a store like Best Buy is for information. If they get a reputation for giving out bad information then a lot of the reason for going there disappears. Granted, the typical reader of Slashdot probably doesn't need a lot of advice, and we probably know how to get better prices elsewhere. However, we do talk to a lot of people who are thinking about buying computers. I am thinking at this point it is probably better to go to Wal-mart where people assume the clerks know nothing about the products than it is to go to BestBuy where management is encouraging employees to give out bad information. I know there will be a lot of flames about the clerks at Best Buy being stupid, and people who rely on them are even stupider. However, I do know some Best Buy employees, and some of them are pretty sharp.
WOW has rather modest hardware requirements. That makes it one of the few current games that might run well on a netbook. This said, I would not buy a netbook with the intention of playing games.
C - the footgun of programming languages
I liked this one:
Linux is safer than windows
The Real Facts:
Are they talking about Linux or Windows? I thought it was quite clever that they could be referring to either, while implying that linux is the inferior one.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
You mean like this?
I work in the financial market....
I called Microsoft a Zombie corporation (and warned several months ago that MSFT earnings would suck even though most traders were optimistic) and have a neutral rating on them. BTW I am not making this stuff up. I happened to have started in the tech industry (still write quant code to this day), but moved to quant/algo trader/junior trader.
The real problem with Microsoft is that its operating system division is dragging down the entire corporation. Windows 7 is not great. I upgraded a Vista machine (HP tablet) and have to say, not bad, but I only upgraded because Vista was so bad. Would I upgrade my XP machines? NOT A CHANCE!!!
I also use Linux and have to say I am very impressed. Perfect? Nope, but very usable. I actually now prefer the Ubuntu fonts to read. Quite nice.
Apple, and Linux are going to devour Microsoft. The cycle has truly started. And once Chrome gets rolling Microsoft is going to have its hands full.
Look at the reality:
1) IIS cannot and has not beat Apache (even after a complete decade). The fact that a product can beat Microsoft is not widely talked about by Microsoft. Notice how Microsoft stopped talking about its IIS?
2) IE is getting stomped! You cannot deny it, but IE is getting beat by Firefox, Chrome (my preferred) and somewhat Safari.
3) Microsoft has completely lost the mobile business and is getting pulverized by the likes of Apple, Palm, and RIMM. Even Nokia has smelt the direction of the wind with the new N900. They know what is happening and are positioning themselves.
4) Java is STILL around. It used to be Microsoft could come out with a development language or environment and the world would bow to Microsoft. Java is still kicking and arguably is doing very well standing its own ground.
Microsoft has some major issues and Windows 7 will show that things will not work...
When the stock market sniffs the lack of Windows 7 follow through MSFT is going down! Right now the market is divided hence its stock price just keeps rolling around treading water. But when that balance sheet keeps grinding down MSFT is done! I am thinking you will probably be able to pick MSFT shares around the low teens next year.
Normally it would be a bit higher, but the selling will be relentless as people will want to get out of their positions (incl the MSFT employees)
How do you solve this?
1) Fire Ballmer and top management
2) Make a base Windows OS open source (no frills). Not for Linux trumping purposes, but if the Windows OS horse dies the entire corporation goes down...
Windows has become a yolk for the entire Microsoft corporation... In the past it was a blessing, now its a curse...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
It's great that BestBuy wants to make money and that one of the ways they can make money is to "partner" with companies, like Microsoft, that will pay them to lie. That's Capitalism for you.
It's also a prominent reason that I, and most of my friends, don't shop at BestBuy. We all know we'll be lied to from BestBuy. It'd be great to go up to a salesperson and feel confident that any questions will receive carefully considered, honest responses. But, what we get are push-products-sold-by-Company-X-because-they're-our-partner responses. So, unlike 1999 when I went to BestBuy once a week, now I go there maybe once every year. I just don't like their B.S.
Well, that and their policy to DEMAND I listen to their spiel about extended warranties, with no regard to whether or not I, the customer, want to hear that crap.
redhaired hippie girlfriend ...The sex is fantastic
Isn't this against the spirit of DOJ's settlement with MS? This shouldn't be allowed when on anti-trust probation.
Table-ized A.I.
... because it updates *everything* (the operating system and all installed applications that come from the distribution).
And the "cannot tell what updates are required and which are optional" comment in Linux is ridiculous. In the update manager on Ubuntu (checked on 9.04), it clearly shows updates with "Important security updates", "Recommended updates" and "Other updates" listed, with a description of the changes.
I don't have much of an issue with the list itself. Obviously it's heavily biased, but I see nothing on there that can be called an outright lie.
My problem is the purpose of BestBuy sending staff to a presentation like that. It's specifically intended to give staff arguments to persuade customers to buy Windows. When the real goal of the staff should be to identify each customer's needs and guide them based on that.
It's one thing to make mention of a more expensive product to see if there's a chance of an upsale, it's quite another to be as one-sided as this presentation is. Whether the staff will recite that presentation to any and all customers, or simply use it as input for any customer that asks for examples of why to pick one over the other, remains to be seen. But I have a feeling....
The fact that this course is offered to BestBuy employees - and apparently only BestBuy employees - says something about consumer electronics retail in 2009 in the US. When I worked at CompUSA (pre - 2000) I frequently went to vendor-sponsored "classes" where they would give us food, beer, free hardware/software, etc, for listening to their pitch. We generally went there and found that there were also BestBuy, CircuitCity, and even OfficeMax or OfficeDepot employees, depending on what was being sold. Now of those five retailers (including CompUSA) only BestBuy remains a significant factor in consumer elecrtonics sales.
I'm surprised that Microsoft apparently didn't even think highly enough of Microcenter to invite them. I guess they are still rather small fish (in terms of market presence) at the moment.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
they don't believe in their own product.
Why do I say that? Because you don't see BMW giving free training videos to car salesmen comparing their cars to say GM or Chrysler or Ford, do you? BMW lives or dies by the quality and reputation of their products; they don't need to "educate" salesmen about their products. This smells of a desperation move where Microsoft must believe their Windows 7 doesn't compare favorably with Linux on netbooks, so they have to try to convince the Best Buy personnel, who let's face it, don't know as much about hardware and software as they know about marketing products, to push the Windows 7 stuff onto customers.
There have been some studies of performance of Windows 7 beta vs. Linux on netbooks which either have not have been clear win for Windows 7 or worse, have shown Windows 7 in an unflattering light. As for citations, the web sites that I can recall are Phoronix.com, and OSNews.com.
I mean trying to "educate" Best Buy sales people and having Windows 7 "House Parties" sounds a little pathetic don't you think? Did Microsoft do something similar when XP came out or even Vista?
"Aww, dangit! I got a BSOD again! Well, I knew it'd happen..."
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
No, I will not upgrade my XP... At least right now the odds are against it.
Let me tell you about something we did...
We used to run Windows 2000 server. And then one day we needed to install it on new hardware. Did not work. So I got the idea and said, why not create a VMWare partition and install Windows 2000 on it and run exclusively Linux servers...
That was 3 years ago! And we still run Windows 2000 server. Recently they tried to install Windows 2008 Server as a virtualized server OS and it sucks completely... But the positive experience with the desktop making us to think about shifting to Linux on the desktop.
Right now the traders have 2 Windows machines and 1 Linux desktop machine. Thus far no problems...
But what we do know right now is that whatever desktops they need, if it involves a native Windows installation it will be the cheapest version with the work horse being Linux.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
I'll tell Linux how to beat M$: make a app store. I know, stupidly obvious, but there isn't one built into ubuntu.
I'm running Ubuntu 8.04 on my laptop, and System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager looks a lot like an app store.
I have to say I'm a heavy Windows user and like Windows 7 a lot, but these kinds of campaigns really disgust me. And I was thinking about buying W7...
When is Windows not like Windows?
When Microsoft ships a new version.
When is Windows just like Windows?
When Microsoft ships a new version.
You all know that Windows 7 is not like any kind of Windows most people are running but as you should have seen if you RTFA, Microsoft's army of marketing droids still likes to tell people that it's Windows so you know it.
Besides this telling the world+dog that Microsoft is fighting Linux, look at the first mention of netbooks and Linux. The page title is about netbooks but the bullets are on PCs. They are being real careful to not allow the netbook to be labeled a special device or market segment and want it to be considered a limited function PC. The reason why is because if people think of the netbook as another device like say, an iPhone, they know that all the smoke and mirror tricks claiming having Windows is better goes out the windows. Peg the netbook as a little computer and people will think that having Windows on it is a good thing to do and if you put anything else on it, you'll have less functionality. The reality is, these resource constrained devices do more with Linux because Linux and OSS does better and can do more in these small devices. Think about it, you don't see Window XP, Vista, or Windows 7 on smartphones or MIDs devices.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
No, BlackBerry users are the ones who wish for a RIM job.
i am going to go in to bestbuy every week and wear down the employees with every talking point i can muster showing Linux is better, they will be running to mcdonalds asking for employment applications after i get done with them.
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Pity the bandwidth of the site was exceeded - could not see the piccys.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Yeah, that's right. Because this means that MS is that something the whole FOSS community has done these last years has worked and MS now actually feels threatened by it and the need to train salesman into fighting it. It is also good news because after all, there is no such thing as bad advertisement, and this is just going to spell out "Streissand effect".
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
This is entirely impossible, because Windows "just works." It's easy to install software (10 out of 10 virus writer's agree), and it's secure (as long as the network cable is unplugged, and you don't power the box on).
Let me ask this? If it is the user's fault and not the OS, why doesn't anybody have to reinstall Linux due to "OS rot" ? Perhaps you didn't think Linux has users too? And no, not all Linux users are technically inclined. I have many contacts who use Linux and need it to just work because they don't know what to do if it doesn't. I think I got one call last year from one person. Everybody else is sailing along just fine, and they are the same caliber of user as the Windows users you are blaming.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Actually you've proven nothing here. Your whole argument is just to brand people he knows as communists (like his grandparents..) with nothing else to back it up.
You're like Joe McCarthy without any power...
Guilt by association doesn't cut it. Especially when you have nothing to prove the BS you're spewing. If Obama were a Marxist you'd be able to point to direct examples of why that is the case. You can't, because you're just a right-winger with an axe to grind.
The Windows 7 drinking game:
(Source link)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
There are women on the internet. They go to Oprah.com to talk about having their periods and shopping on the computer that a man bought for them.
Seriously if MS has to teach BestBuy employees sales pitches to keep people from LINUX you know LINUX has made an impact on the average joe. All this will do isput the name LINUX into more peoples minds. It'll make people ask questions like.. Whats up with LINUX if BestBuy is trying to show me how much better W7 is VS LINUX? If they are trying to tell me W7 is the best compared to LINUX then LINUX must be up there? Maybe its good enough for me to try it out?
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Eric Raymond has an interesting article (2006) where he argues that big changes on the software market can only occur when there is an industry-wide switch in the hardware. According to Eric Raymond the window of opportunity created by the transition to 64bit platforms closes (has closed) in 2008. However I still see Windows Vista PCs on sale with 3GByte of memory because 64bit Windows lacks driver support and 32bit Windows can only address 4GByte of memory (minus 1GByte to address the graphics card AFAIK).
This is a good sign. The fact that Microsoft feels it necessary to attack Linux at the retail level shows that Linux is becoming more and more of a factor in the computing mainstream as well. Thanks, Microsoft, for supporting Linux.
ubuntu. hands down, I tried a few different distros and ubuntu was the one that just worked. I install it on my laptop and every piece of hardware works with no issues. Plus any issue you have a quick google solves 9 times out of 10.
being vague is almost as cool as doing that other thing...
I've been using Linux on servers for years but always used M$ on the desktop. When my MB blew and XP wouldn't run on the new one, I started using Ubuntu Desktop. Everything worked... generally with less drama than Windows. My DVD writer with Lightscribe worked, my laser printer worked of course. My Brother 5890 MFP scans and prints even though I can only get it to print from XP (It won't scan to XP... who knows why?).
I've been using Openoffice every since Word 2000 inexplicably stopped working on my XP machine even with a full reinstall. The only thing that was missing was Visio. Fortunately, my old version of Visio (which won't work on Vista) will work just fund under Wine on Linux... also without any messing around.
I used to be an advocate of Linux for people who didn't mind fiddling. Now I would suggest it for people who don't want to have to fiddle, so long as they don't need to get help from their local Windows-Geek.
They don't have to. Just ask Nvidia about that one.
With MS Windows everyone copes with "you need service pack 4 to run this software" or other indications of a moving target. That's the way a lot of consumer and small business software is. At the big end of town vendors just specify RHEL4 or whatever. In nearly every case the "stable ABI" is there anyway since the applications don't care about the kernel, they just care whether certain libraries are there and they certainly behave in a much stable way than the DLL hell you get in systems without library versioning. So the linux distribution uses version 5 of the library and the application uses the totally incompatible version 2 - no problem, a half decent distro will give you the old version as well in some legacy package and a half decent application installer would include the old library as well. If neither is half decent it takes a few minutes on the net to track down the old library. There is no DLL hell, you have both libraries on the system and the application uses the one it was intended for.
So the answer, oddly enough, is that for applications you have a far more stable environment than on MS Windows and many hardware manufacturers have been dealing with the kernel side for a decade. The reality is not what you imply but simply resources. It takes effort to port things to different platforms no matter what they are. On the kernel side there are a lot of people that will happily put in time to support new bits of hardware, but for various reasons (such as fear of competition or legal action) some hardware vendors will not release the information required to do this. It's not about a "stable ABI" at all.
http://ixnotes.wordpress.com/2009/09/06/microsoft-propaganda-handed-out-to-staples-employees/ I thought while we're talking about it I'd post these images of Microsoft's propaganda they've been distributing to Staples employees. Numerous lies like greater compatibility than GNU/Linux-when most of the older hardware won't work with MS Windows Vista. GNU/Linux is compatible with more hardware than any operating system in history. It may not work with some of the latest and greatest-but for the most part it works better. I don't spend 3 hours fiddling with installing my printer drivers. I plug it in- and it just appears as an option in whatever program I need to print with. The learning curve for GNU/Linux is generally not as high as it is for MS Windows Vista. Unlike what they claim MS Vista and MS Office 2007 software which customers would buy if they got Vista is more cumbersome, has a reduced feature set, is slow, lacks important features like PDF support, and so on. GNU/Linux has better support generally than MS Windows. GNU/Linux supports stuff out of the box whereas with MS Windows users hand to install lots of bloated software, drivers, and waste time figuring out how to use it. GNU/Linux on the other hand can generally be had without such support headaches. Once you're introduced to shut down, applications menu, saving in different formats, and exporting to PDF it is just simpler. Getting devices to work in MS Windows can require modification/and or troubleshooting. Hardware rarely works out of the box. Microsoft want's you to believe that GNU/Linux netbooks have a higher return rate. The fact is that some manufacturers screwed up their GNU/Linux introductions to customers and their particular return rates were higher. Overall GNU/Linux is on par with MS Windows.
Linux vs Windows is a fun debate that many nerds are interested in, due to Linux's special status, and many nerds have a passion for it, Slashdot is news for nerds, hence the article.
I'm sure most of the others are low-key debates like the merits of consumers buying Halo over Blizzard Starcraft, Epson over HP printers, Fujitsu VS TDK CD-Rs, or Mitsumi VS Samsung DVD-ROM drives, or VI vs Emacs are of little interest to most.
Those would be of interest to some, but probably not most slashdot readers.
But i'm sure if Intel put out some seriously negative propaganda about AMD CPUs, or nVidia put out some seriously nasty propaganda about ATI video cards, or HP put out some negative propaganda about Dells or Apples, massive numbers of slashdot readers would be concerned....
Much like they'd be if MS was involved. The bigger / more monopolistic the company, the more scandalous it is to put out negative propaganda about attempted competitors.
Because it's seen as a clearer abuse of monopoly power to quash attempts by weaker companies (or the community, in the case with Linux) to compete.
Your point seems to be that you can't be sure particular hardware will work with Linux. I haven't used Windows for several years so I can't comment on hardware issues with XP/Vista/W7, but I do know that on the 5 laptop/desktop computers in my household, every one "just works" with Ubuntu. Not a single hardware issue - not with a just-released printer/scanner from a supplier not known for their Linux support; not with the no-name PCMCIA wifi card one older laptop uses; or any of the built-in wifi adaptors.
I don't have access to unbiased datasets on this issue (I suspect that no-one does), but from my personal experience, this is a non-issue.
Do as you would be done to.
mirror here: http://quaoar.ww7.be/ms_fud_of_the_year/569458-microsoft-attack-linux-retail-level-probably.html
http://quaoar.ww7.be/ms_fud_of_the_year/569458-microsoft-attack-linux-retail-level-probably.html Photobucket quota exceeded here is another place to see the screenshots
People say my sig is the best thing about me.