I'm not defending Red Hat in any way but, in my experience, *all* support is terrible these days.
I worked in telecoms/computer support for around 20 years before going into consultancy and I've seen the whole thing change for the worse. It used to be highly customer facing and the customers themselves were very appreciative of seeing the same faces on a regular basis.
Nowadays it's about front-ending support with an offshore call centre designed specifically to discourage the customer from calling in with a problem in the first place. And higher up the support chain, any form of free will used in fixing problems is discouraged, it's all about pretty coloured graphs and flow charts that define support processes and remove any form of free thought.
I can remember being proud of saying I worked in "third line support" - last year I told my ex-boss to stuff his job where the sun doesn't shine because of a process being introduced that defined my job and experience into a 120 box flow chart.
And quite frankly, we have the good old American business minds and (more recently) their Sarbanes Oxley paranoia to blame for all of it.
There's also rumours of an Apple/Beatles announcement sometime today, perhaps tied into this drm decision.
...if you're too stupid to be able to rip Beatles songs from a CD yourself, or, indeed, you believe you can understand the full nuances of the Beatles music while listening to it through tinny (and tiny) headphones while you're on a gym treadmill, then my advice is stay away from their stuff altogether in the first place.
Stick to the "music for the masses" claptrap that infests the pop charts today - and you'll still be nice and fashionable with your iPod also...
Having come from the Commodore Amiga background, I was always very impressed with Directory Opus and what that did for file management - I understand that even to this day it's available for the PC, I've just never had the time to try it out yet.
If you just want two panes of seperate directories just open 2 explorer windows(Win+E works good). Select the windows you want to have paned in the task bar using CTRL. Right click and then click on "Tile Horizontally"... voila 2 panes of different folders.
Thanks for the advice and I do already use this method - together with using a List view of all the files. The problem with this is that Windows doesn't remember settings so you seem to be constantly fiddling with it to get it right.
Any idea how nice it is to see a live view of an application on another desktop just hovering your mouse over it's task manager button?
To be honest, this is a typical example of a waste of CPU cycles - what's wrong with having 4 virtual screens, having applications running on different screens and just using a simple keyboard shortcut to switch between screens? If all I am seeing is a smaller version of the application window when I hover the mouse on the taskbar, how do I necessarily know what state that application is in before deciding to return to it or not?
Linux distros tend to go in and out of fashion very quickly - first it was Slackware, then Red Hat, then SuSE, then Mandrake, and now Ubuntu. I don't have a problem with that because with each change of fashion, the distros have become easier and easier for the "man in the street to use".
But as the fashions have changed, so a number of people have stayed with their chosen distro meaning that Dell selling pre-installed Linux is not that useful to them - as a Gentoo user myself, I'd just end up buying one of the laptops and reformatting it.
No, I'd much rather see a "Hardware Certified with Linux Kernel 2.6.19" sticker on the laptop case (much like the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker I immediately remove from any laptops I buy today) so that I don't have to do a lot of research myself in finding out whether or not the hardware in any specific laptop is Linux compatible.
Um duh! I thought the idea behind virtualization was to run what would have taken two computers on the same computer, and simplify administration.
I don't see how it simplifies administration. Even in virtualization, you have at least two (presumably different) operating systems that need to be managed and update regularly...
The argument about "some bands getting their music streamed faster than others" makes absolutely no sense to me.
I'm like most discerning music lovers in that I pretty much know what artists I like and what music (on CD in my case) I am going to buy. Therefore, I'm not going to go buy a particular CD by one artist because it's cheaper than a CD by another artist - instead, I've pretty much decided which CD I want and just go looking for the cheapest place to buy it.
Other than that, I may buy a CD by an artist I've never heard before purely because I'm browsing through a CD retailer's web site and see a CD worth trying based on it being a good price.
And because I'm particularly passionate about the music I like anyway, if some big record company tries to foist a particular artist on me through advertisements, the chances are that I'll ignore it even more and go find something else - only because *I* decide what I will and will not listen to, not some record company.
Unfortunately, we seem to be breeding a younger generation that is programmed to treat music as a "throwaway commodity" like a washing machine, rather than something you carry with you throughout your life. The iPod generation typifies the viewpoint that when you're bored with it, just format the hard disk and start buying some new music.
Me personally, I've got albums that I first listened to 30 years ago on a noisy copied cassette tape through owning on vinyl to now having on CD. Sure, I've MP3ed my CD collection to carry round with me easily but there's no way I'd sell the original CDs, even though they only now get played occasionally on my reasonably good hifi system, because I *LOVE* the artists and albums so much.
Firstly, I think it's important to separate the "show offs" from the "power users". In other words, if certain people want pretty graphical features in Windows, KDE, Gnome, etc. etc. then let them have them - but also allow them to be turned off for people like me who want functionality, integration and speed with no interest of wasting *always* important CPU cycles on eye candy.
Personally, I find the defauly Windows XP GUI patronising and completely unusable - I much prefer the Windows "Classic" desktop, the only thing missing from it is a proper dual pane file manager that shows one directory in the left window, another in the right window and a number of easily accessible commands for working with files beneath each window (a la Midnight Commander or Directory Opus).
KDE is also nice but far too flashy and bloaty for a power user like me - given the choice between KDE and Gnome, I choose Gnome but even then with some reservations about the wasted screen real estate with Gnome.
But if I need a GUI enviroment that just allows me to have multiple shells or apps running, without too much need for filetype integration (so that when I double-click on, say, a JPEG image icon, a viewer application opens the image for me) then XFCE4 is a good compromise for usability and speed.
I can see *ABSOLUTELY NO NEED* for 3D file explorers on 3D desktops unless you simply want a fashion accessory just to show off to friends. Unless you use a PC for gaming (which admittedly I do quite a lot), then everything else you do on it is about productivity and using an application to get a job done quickly and easily - if any desktop effects do not make that productivity work any faster, then they are a complete and total waste of time.
He gave his honest opinion of the show without resorting to cheap abuse, unlike you.You're the one with the problem if you take someone's opinion on something personally so DEAL WITH IT!
As it stands now lets say you have the premium account (about $72 a year). That allows you to buy up to 512m3 without incurring extra costs. However the price to do that is about $1600 then a couple of $100 a month on top of that. Once you have land you can lease land for cheaper (works around $30 for three months) but you incur extra costs on top of that.
As an ex-AD&D player, although I have absolutely no interest in World Of Warcraft myself, I can see the appeal of pretending to be a psionic goblin (or whatever) and running around in a pretend world with lots of other psionic goblins.
But playing around with *REAL ESTATE*??? Sheesh, you people SURE know how to have a GOOD TIME!!!
As to why do people play the "game". You need to change that mindset. It is not a game. It is a virtual world.
Thanks for that definition and for your sacrifice for the benefit of all. Because those of us who were thought of by others as being slightly "sad" for playing the occasional game of Counter-Strike or Doom (especially middle-agers like me) have absolutely nothing on you people.
Lots of areas fall into sex related
You really ought to try the real thing in a loving monogamous relationship as it's much nicer when there's at least two people involved in it. On-line sex always factors down to the same thing - someone sat in front of a keyboard trying to type with one hand...
If you want to clear the internet of pr0n and make it safe for kids, create a.fam domain and then make the registrar a board consisting of the LDS Church, Christian Coalition, Southern Baptist Conference, and Catholic Church. Before any site is accepted, a scan will be done on their code to ensure *every* link on the page ends in.fam.
How about we keep the big fat noses of any religious zealots out of it in the first place.
Let's face it, if the religious groups were doing their job correctly anyhow, we would not be seeing the breakdown of moral and family values that we are seeing today. It is perfectly possible to be a decent, honest, moral and law-abiding citizen without once setting foot in any religious building or reading any "holy" book - therefore, religions should be focusing on the weak-minded people who have no understanding of what it is to live in a society.
Any responsible parent has a duty to monitor what their kids do on the Internet. It's very easy to learn how to look in browser caches to see what kids have been doing plus there are hundreds of free tools a parent can use to discourage porn sites from popping up or being visited - Firefox and a few add-ons is a damn good start.
Oh, the Haggis Lovers are that lot North of Hadrian's Wall... the "Scotties" is it? Something like that...
Don't worry about them... painting themselves blue and all that.
Yes, agree about Iron Maiden - and recently gave the 15 year old son of my missus's cousin a shock the other week when I went round there to set up his laptop for wireless.
He had the sleeve of their latest album (A Matter Of Life and Death) on his Windows desktop and was quite shocked when I told him I saw them in a local sports centre hall in 1981-ish with a couple of hundred other people! (It was even Paul Di'anno singing with them at the time!)
Consumers want singles to mix and match as they please, and the became easily possible to get them for free via filesharing long before the record companies started selling them that way.
Ahem!
Sorry to urinate on your Roman Candle, but this particular consumer doesn't want "mix and match" music. "Mix and match" is for short term things - like bags of sweets in the cinema or girlies buying matching handbags and shoes for a wedding...
Music is a long term thing. It's made by musicians who are capable of producing music of high enough quality to fill an entire album that is worth listening to - and I should know, I've been happily buying that music for 35 years now. Look carefully enough and it's even being made today...
No, what you're talking about isn't "music"... I don't think there's a word for what you're talking about (at least not a nice word) but it's similar to having a pair of shoes that only last three months... or a washing machine with a three year warranty...
By all means enjoy your "pick what I like and then format the hard disk when I'm bored with it" stuff but please don't lump me in that group - I may be old and boring but I like a nice shiny disc and some sleeve notes to read while I'm sat in front of a raging fire smoking my pipe and wearing my slippers...
Many of the music styles may not be American so they are buying music from non-American sources
It took me until the grand old age of about 40 to realise that we British have three things to be very proud of:
1. The BBC - Dr Who and NO BLOODY ADVERTS!!!
2. Beer - our real ale is THE BEST BEER IN THE WORLD and the Germans/Belgians may know a thing or two about sausages/chocolate respectively but they're a poor second to good old British ale.
3. Music - The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton and Lieutenant Pigeon, to name but a few... Oh, and while we're on the subject, can our American friends please get Christine McVie to divorce Mr McVie, leave Fleetwood Mac and come back over here where she belongs as Christine Perfect alongside Stan "The Man" Webb in Chicken Shack.
By all means refer to recent music by (predominantly) black artists as MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) or some other unique name but please DO NOT hijack the name "R&B" (Rhythm and Blues) when describing that kind of music alone. The term "Rhythm and Blues" encompasses a very wide range of music, from the likes of Atlantic Soul music from Otis Redding through blues music like John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, etc. and was in use many years before being used as a category for modern mainly-black music.
Hip-hop is on the decline
And who's loss is that? All it did was take pieces from earlier songs, tear them apart and have some bloke talking over it.
rock music has never recovered since the 90's
A true rock music fan has more than enough material to last him a lifetime anyway. But as someone traditionally into the likes of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, not only are a lot of my heroes still wheeling themselves out on stage, I also have some good newer bands like Radiohead, Oasis, Kasabian, etc. that I can give a spin. I've been a rock fan (as well as some blues, soul and classical) for 35 years now and I'm still finding new and interesting stuff all of the time, stuff I missed from the early 70s through to new music today.
The whole "rock is dead" thing is a myth - it just never needed to be particularly cool and fashionable and just got on with it...
Is anyone surprised people are buying less music?
I'm actually buying less because I'm enjoying music more. I no longer buy CDs that just turn out to have one good song on them - I read reviews and download it from Usenet or BitTorrent first. If it's good, I buy it (I genuinely have about 1000 legally bought CDs) and if it's crap I delete it.
And I definitely don't buy from rip-off high street shops any more - much rather new or used online.
We don't need to make useless changes to an OS that is hardly supported.
Can you please define "useless change"? That sounds like something of an oxymoron (like "Microsoft Works" for example) - surely if there was no point making a change, then why would you make it?
I'd also ask for an explanation of "hardly supported". You can buy *technical* support from Red Hat, Novell, IBM, to name but a few. And whilst I agree Linux support people are a smaller number than those offering Windows support, there are still an ever-growing number of people capable of offering it. Not to mention the number of free forums on the Internet where you can get support.
You run your business how you see fit, and if Microsoft products work for you then keep using them. But please desist from these baseless opinions about Linux - you, by your own admission, are *not qualified* to make those statements - so please do not make them.
You seem to only be able to talk in generalisations - which suggests to me that you know a lot less about Linux than you think you do.
What do you mean by "reprogram"? Correct me if I'm wrong but if something doesn't work in Windows, you *reconfigure* it, or maybe download some kind of update. With the exception of not always having a GUI in Linux to carry out that change or update in, the procedure is no different on Linux. On rare occasions, you may need to "recompile" the kernel to get a piece of hardware - but do some research on the hardware before you buy it and use a modular kernel with the right distro and you can usually avoid that level of work.
Also your training comment is stupid. Surely the whole purpose of training someone is to expose them to something new?
And perhaps you'd like to explain why a "home user operating system" is currently being used in more embedded devices than you could possibly know about, as well as ISPs and data centres across the entire globe. Oh, and why, for the large telecomms company I work for, Linux is the core underlying OS for our telephony servers that can each drive around 30,000 extension and trunk ports in busineses and telephony service providers everywhere.
I am not, in any way, disagreeing with your comments that Linux may be unsuitable for some of the things you need to do in your business. But I do suggest that you have had little or no exposure to Linux and are therefore basing your comments on hearsay and a complete lack of actual knowledge of Linux. Therefore you are not qualified to make those comments.
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I worked in telecoms/computer support for around 20 years before going into consultancy and I've seen the whole thing change for the worse. It used to be highly customer facing and the customers themselves were very appreciative of seeing the same faces on a regular basis.
Nowadays it's about front-ending support with an offshore call centre designed specifically to discourage the customer from calling in with a problem in the first place. And higher up the support chain, any form of free will used in fixing problems is discouraged, it's all about pretty coloured graphs and flow charts that define support processes and remove any form of free thought.
I can remember being proud of saying I worked in "third line support" - last year I told my ex-boss to stuff his job where the sun doesn't shine because of a process being introduced that defined my job and experience into a 120 box flow chart.
And quite frankly, we have the good old American business minds and (more recently) their Sarbanes Oxley paranoia to blame for all of it.
Stick to the "music for the masses" claptrap that infests the pop charts today - and you'll still be nice and fashionable with your iPod also...
Having come from the Commodore Amiga background, I was always very impressed with Directory Opus and what that did for file management - I understand that even to this day it's available for the PC, I've just never had the time to try it out yet.
Thanks for the advice and I do already use this method - together with using a List view of all the files. The problem with this is that Windows doesn't remember settings so you seem to be constantly fiddling with it to get it right.
To be honest, this is a typical example of a waste of CPU cycles - what's wrong with having 4 virtual screens, having applications running on different screens and just using a simple keyboard shortcut to switch between screens? If all I am seeing is a smaller version of the application window when I hover the mouse on the taskbar, how do I necessarily know what state that application is in before deciding to return to it or not?
Linux distros tend to go in and out of fashion very quickly - first it was Slackware, then Red Hat, then SuSE, then Mandrake, and now Ubuntu. I don't have a problem with that because with each change of fashion, the distros have become easier and easier for the "man in the street to use".
But as the fashions have changed, so a number of people have stayed with their chosen distro meaning that Dell selling pre-installed Linux is not that useful to them - as a Gentoo user myself, I'd just end up buying one of the laptops and reformatting it.
No, I'd much rather see a "Hardware Certified with Linux Kernel 2.6.19" sticker on the laptop case (much like the "Designed for Windows XP" sticker I immediately remove from any laptops I buy today) so that I don't have to do a lot of research myself in finding out whether or not the hardware in any specific laptop is Linux compatible.
I don't see how it simplifies administration. Even in virtualization, you have at least two (presumably different) operating systems that need to be managed and update regularly...
I'm like most discerning music lovers in that I pretty much know what artists I like and what music (on CD in my case) I am going to buy. Therefore, I'm not going to go buy a particular CD by one artist because it's cheaper than a CD by another artist - instead, I've pretty much decided which CD I want and just go looking for the cheapest place to buy it.
Other than that, I may buy a CD by an artist I've never heard before purely because I'm browsing through a CD retailer's web site and see a CD worth trying based on it being a good price.
And because I'm particularly passionate about the music I like anyway, if some big record company tries to foist a particular artist on me through advertisements, the chances are that I'll ignore it even more and go find something else - only because *I* decide what I will and will not listen to, not some record company.
Unfortunately, we seem to be breeding a younger generation that is programmed to treat music as a "throwaway commodity" like a washing machine, rather than something you carry with you throughout your life. The iPod generation typifies the viewpoint that when you're bored with it, just format the hard disk and start buying some new music.
Me personally, I've got albums that I first listened to 30 years ago on a noisy copied cassette tape through owning on vinyl to now having on CD. Sure, I've MP3ed my CD collection to carry round with me easily but there's no way I'd sell the original CDs, even though they only now get played occasionally on my reasonably good hifi system, because I *LOVE* the artists and albums so much.
Personally, I find the defauly Windows XP GUI patronising and completely unusable - I much prefer the Windows "Classic" desktop, the only thing missing from it is a proper dual pane file manager that shows one directory in the left window, another in the right window and a number of easily accessible commands for working with files beneath each window (a la Midnight Commander or Directory Opus).
KDE is also nice but far too flashy and bloaty for a power user like me - given the choice between KDE and Gnome, I choose Gnome but even then with some reservations about the wasted screen real estate with Gnome.
But if I need a GUI enviroment that just allows me to have multiple shells or apps running, without too much need for filetype integration (so that when I double-click on, say, a JPEG image icon, a viewer application opens the image for me) then XFCE4 is a good compromise for usability and speed.
I can see *ABSOLUTELY NO NEED* for 3D file explorers on 3D desktops unless you simply want a fashion accessory just to show off to friends. Unless you use a PC for gaming (which admittedly I do quite a lot), then everything else you do on it is about productivity and using an application to get a job done quickly and easily - if any desktop effects do not make that productivity work any faster, then they are a complete and total waste of time.
He gave his honest opinion of the show without resorting to cheap abuse, unlike you.You're the one with the problem if you take someone's opinion on something personally so DEAL WITH IT!
...that sells nice big coffee tables that will nicely show off your ever-expanding range of Apple products to all of your friends.
As an ex-AD&D player, although I have absolutely no interest in World Of Warcraft myself, I can see the appeal of pretending to be a psionic goblin (or whatever) and running around in a pretend world with lots of other psionic goblins.
But playing around with *REAL ESTATE*??? Sheesh, you people SURE know how to have a GOOD TIME!!!
As to why do people play the "game". You need to change that mindset. It is not a game. It is a virtual world.
Thanks for that definition and for your sacrifice for the benefit of all. Because those of us who were thought of by others as being slightly "sad" for playing the occasional game of Counter-Strike or Doom (especially middle-agers like me) have absolutely nothing on you people.
Lots of areas fall into sex related
You really ought to try the real thing in a loving monogamous relationship as it's much nicer when there's at least two people involved in it. On-line sex always factors down to the same thing - someone sat in front of a keyboard trying to type with one hand...
I'd never heard of this guy until this topic came up, but I just watched his first show and must admit that it was pretty amusing stuff.
What? You mean The Ramones made videos???
And there was me thinking that all Porcupine Tree fans (myself included) are intelligent, discerning people.
How about we keep the big fat noses of any religious zealots out of it in the first place.
Let's face it, if the religious groups were doing their job correctly anyhow, we would not be seeing the breakdown of moral and family values that we are seeing today. It is perfectly possible to be a decent, honest, moral and law-abiding citizen without once setting foot in any religious building or reading any "holy" book - therefore, religions should be focusing on the weak-minded people who have no understanding of what it is to live in a society.
Any responsible parent has a duty to monitor what their kids do on the Internet. It's very easy to learn how to look in browser caches to see what kids have been doing plus there are hundreds of free tools a parent can use to discourage porn sites from popping up or being visited - Firefox and a few add-ons is a damn good start.
Don't worry about them... painting themselves blue and all that.
Yes, agree about Iron Maiden - and recently gave the 15 year old son of my missus's cousin a shock the other week when I went round there to set up his laptop for wireless.
He had the sleeve of their latest album (A Matter Of Life and Death) on his Windows desktop and was quite shocked when I told him I saw them in a local sports centre hall in 1981-ish with a couple of hundred other people! (It was even Paul Di'anno singing with them at the time!)
Ahem!
Sorry to urinate on your Roman Candle, but this particular consumer doesn't want "mix and match" music. "Mix and match" is for short term things - like bags of sweets in the cinema or girlies buying matching handbags and shoes for a wedding...
Music is a long term thing. It's made by musicians who are capable of producing music of high enough quality to fill an entire album that is worth listening to - and I should know, I've been happily buying that music for 35 years now. Look carefully enough and it's even being made today...
No, what you're talking about isn't "music"... I don't think there's a word for what you're talking about (at least not a nice word) but it's similar to having a pair of shoes that only last three months... or a washing machine with a three year warranty...
By all means enjoy your "pick what I like and then format the hard disk when I'm bored with it" stuff but please don't lump me in that group - I may be old and boring but I like a nice shiny disc and some sleeve notes to read while I'm sat in front of a raging fire smoking my pipe and wearing my slippers...
It took me until the grand old age of about 40 to realise that we British have three things to be very proud of:
1. The BBC - Dr Who and NO BLOODY ADVERTS!!!
2. Beer - our real ale is THE BEST BEER IN THE WORLD and the Germans/Belgians may know a thing or two about sausages/chocolate respectively but they're a poor second to good old British ale.
3. Music - The Beatles, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Eric Clapton and Lieutenant Pigeon, to name but a few... Oh, and while we're on the subject, can our American friends please get Christine McVie to divorce Mr McVie, leave Fleetwood Mac and come back over here where she belongs as Christine Perfect alongside Stan "The Man" Webb in Chicken Shack.
Thanks for listening.
Are there any other Brits out there who are currently thinking about making a wise crack about "three chords" or "Living On An Island"?
Because take it from me... our trans-Atlantic cousins have never got to grips with Messrs. Rossi, Parfitt and Co.
By all means refer to recent music by (predominantly) black artists as MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) or some other unique name but please DO NOT hijack the name "R&B" (Rhythm and Blues) when describing that kind of music alone. The term "Rhythm and Blues" encompasses a very wide range of music, from the likes of Atlantic Soul music from Otis Redding through blues music like John Lee Hooker, Buddy Guy, etc. and was in use many years before being used as a category for modern mainly-black music.
Hip-hop is on the decline
And who's loss is that? All it did was take pieces from earlier songs, tear them apart and have some bloke talking over it.
rock music has never recovered since the 90's
A true rock music fan has more than enough material to last him a lifetime anyway. But as someone traditionally into the likes of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, not only are a lot of my heroes still wheeling themselves out on stage, I also have some good newer bands like Radiohead, Oasis, Kasabian, etc. that I can give a spin. I've been a rock fan (as well as some blues, soul and classical) for 35 years now and I'm still finding new and interesting stuff all of the time, stuff I missed from the early 70s through to new music today.
The whole "rock is dead" thing is a myth - it just never needed to be particularly cool and fashionable and just got on with it...
Is anyone surprised people are buying less music?
I'm actually buying less because I'm enjoying music more. I no longer buy CDs that just turn out to have one good song on them - I read reviews and download it from Usenet or BitTorrent first. If it's good, I buy it (I genuinely have about 1000 legally bought CDs) and if it's crap I delete it.
And I definitely don't buy from rip-off high street shops any more - much rather new or used online.
Especially if you're Roger Daltrey.
Can you please define "useless change"? That sounds like something of an oxymoron (like "Microsoft Works" for example) - surely if there was no point making a change, then why would you make it?
I'd also ask for an explanation of "hardly supported". You can buy *technical* support from Red Hat, Novell, IBM, to name but a few. And whilst I agree Linux support people are a smaller number than those offering Windows support, there are still an ever-growing number of people capable of offering it. Not to mention the number of free forums on the Internet where you can get support.
You run your business how you see fit, and if Microsoft products work for you then keep using them. But please desist from these baseless opinions about Linux - you, by your own admission, are *not qualified* to make those statements - so please do not make them.
What do you mean by "reprogram"? Correct me if I'm wrong but if something doesn't work in Windows, you *reconfigure* it, or maybe download some kind of update. With the exception of not always having a GUI in Linux to carry out that change or update in, the procedure is no different on Linux. On rare occasions, you may need to "recompile" the kernel to get a piece of hardware - but do some research on the hardware before you buy it and use a modular kernel with the right distro and you can usually avoid that level of work.
Also your training comment is stupid. Surely the whole purpose of training someone is to expose them to something new?
And perhaps you'd like to explain why a "home user operating system" is currently being used in more embedded devices than you could possibly know about, as well as ISPs and data centres across the entire globe. Oh, and why, for the large telecomms company I work for, Linux is the core underlying OS for our telephony servers that can each drive around 30,000 extension and trunk ports in busineses and telephony service providers everywhere.
I am not, in any way, disagreeing with your comments that Linux may be unsuitable for some of the things you need to do in your business. But I do suggest that you have had little or no exposure to Linux and are therefore basing your comments on hearsay and a complete lack of actual knowledge of Linux. Therefore you are not qualified to make those comments.