I've read through a pile of the postings today as a way of trying to get to grips with whether or not I can risk switching to Linux, and have found the postings really informative and helpful, thanks. I'm someone for whom computers are tools, like cars, not ends in themselves, so any time spent making them go is not desired. I've spent a lot of time making Win computers go over the years. At present I have one laptop running XP and one running Vista. Little problems with both of them, the XP one needs to be reformatted now as it's clogged to death and running like treacle. A year ago it was flying. Sigh.
But the switch to Linux clearly has its own problems: "Synaptic" to add a program? Who the hell dreamed that up? GIMP when I was a boy was an insect repellent. All the K, G, N words are ugly. Yes, I know, I shouldn't care about ugly.
More importantly, will my Palm PDA, Zen MP3 player, tax accounting software, and so on and on, all work? And if not, how long will I spend switching all these?
I'm sorry, Linus, my dear boy, but purity is not what I'm interested in; I'm interested in having a hammer which is balanced and hits the nail without me having to forge it myself. I'm the millions of people; those keen on choosing every step of installation are the few.
I suspect my next OS will still be Win.
Cheers.
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I've read through a pile of the postings today as a way of trying to get to grips with whether or not I can risk switching to Linux, and have found the postings really informative and helpful, thanks. I'm someone for whom computers are tools, like cars, not ends in themselves, so any time spent making them go is not desired. I've spent a lot of time making Win computers go over the years. At present I have one laptop running XP and one running Vista. Little problems with both of them, the XP one needs to be reformatted now as it's clogged to death and running like treacle. A year ago it was flying. Sigh. But the switch to Linux clearly has its own problems: "Synaptic" to add a program? Who the hell dreamed that up? GIMP when I was a boy was an insect repellent. All the K, G, N words are ugly. Yes, I know, I shouldn't care about ugly. More importantly, will my Palm PDA, Zen MP3 player, tax accounting software, and so on and on, all work? And if not, how long will I spend switching all these? I'm sorry, Linus, my dear boy, but purity is not what I'm interested in; I'm interested in having a hammer which is balanced and hits the nail without me having to forge it myself. I'm the millions of people; those keen on choosing every step of installation are the few. I suspect my next OS will still be Win. Cheers.