Lighten up, doofus. This guy has fought against the insurmountable odds of advertising, pre-installation, outright prejudice, lies, FUD, and the pain of dealing with the non-computer-literate to install over 300 Linux systems. Before you get all huffy with your math and your claims of ineffectiveness, how many systems (Windows or whatever) have *you* personally installed for others?
Re your signature, you don't have a mod stalker, you're simply a jerk.
Oh, one other thing, NVidia cards and their Linux drivers work wonderfully in Linux in my experience. If the customer has onboard or otherwise NVidia, I plunge ahead, confident that I can give them dual monitors and maximum resolution. Turning them on to the concept of multiple desktops is a strong selling point to make the OS switch.
LOL, just perpetuating a stereotype. First of all, I've just not seen the condescending crabbiness on the web that some talk about. The friendliest, most effective support I've found online concerns Linux and making stuff work. OTOH, Windows issues, more often than not, involve reinstalling of the OS. Ecch. Or my exact problem posted on a forum with no responses.
Question 1: Do any of your customers ever call to ask about Netflix or similar DRM-riddled-but-really-quite-awesome services that are all the rage with the kids these days? I'm sure that it can be hammered into functioning on Linux, but I'm not -ever- handholding someone through the process, and I strongly suspect that supporting it would be more costly and frustrating to them (the user) than paying me periodically to make Windows run properly again (and again).
Nope. In all honesty, I recommend dual-booting for laptops for that very reason, Netflix may well be a possibility for travelers. Making it work on Linux would be problematic. If someone wants to use it on their desktop, I recommend a wireless router and a Roku box instead. I've not run into anyone who watches TV on their PC, obviously that should be one other question to ask before touching anything.
Question 2: Peripheral hardware support seems to finally be getting back to the state it was in during the brief period in the 90s after Linux gained enough developer popularity to be a real useable system with random hardware, but before Winmodems became ubiquitous, complex 3D acceleration became common, and undocumented and non-replaceable hardware became somewhat the rule (Broadcom, in particular, should die in a fire).
Wireless is the biggest gotcha. Dell + Ubuntu usually works well, thanks to them pre-installing. The distro tends to play nice, at least with latops vintage 2006 and later, and thus propagates nicely down to the Ubuntu-based Mint as well. In all good conscience, I just don't try to make people happy with Unity, seeing's how the paradigm for the last 17 years has been draggable icons on the desktop and a start button.
USB-based wireless is not well supported, unfortunately. If that's what the customer has, research ahead of time is definitely needed. In one case, I simply couldn't make their 20 dollar piece of junk work. The customer willingly went and bought a thirty-dollar model that was well-supported, it only added a half-hour to my time, I still made a nice profit.
The only other hardware issues I've had are with all-in-one scanner/printers, specifically the scanners. I've never encountered a printer that didn't require more than a ppd download, readily available through Google searching. Most printers are nailed perfectly by the wizards (I'm familiar with Suse, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Mint, both KDE and Gnome desktops). But scanners can be bugbears. Again, prior research is your friend. Some just aren't worth fighting with. Brother all-in-ones are my first recommendation to people who haven't yet committed to hardware, they have excellent Linux support from the manufacturer.
Perhaps the number one factor here is the customer's willingness to go for it. The only reluctance I've encountered is from my dearest wife. That's because the Gateway laptop she bought two years ago came infested with Vista, and I told her that her tech support needed to come from our son, who talked her into buying the infernal thing in the first place. After he left the nest, and the spyware problems became unbearable, i informed her that I would support her 90%-web-based computing only if I could remove the sludgy OS and replace it with Ubuntu. She agreed, and all has been well since, although occasional Flash fubars cause her to grumble. Indeed, HTML5 will be one of the best things to ever happen to desktop Linux, with the removal of Flash (and other proprietary crap like Silverlight).
In all other cases, folks were already anti-Windows, or else eager to try something that would insulate them from spyware, viruses, and trojans. Thus, any future bumps in the road would be viewed by them as necessary maintenance, not proof that this newfangled stuff is as bad as the comment trolls and the Microsoft shills have made it out to be.
I've actually gotten too busy with a career to chase down business, but I would charge $100 to save documents off of a fubarred Windows XP machine, install Ubuntu, and then train. If any would have failed (none did, a couple dozen or so), I would have charged them another c-note to put Windows back on, complete with Open Office, Firefox, and free bug protection. The key was always on a tag on the machine somewhere.
There are a number of happy Linux users in my neighborhood, and I got some beer money doing something that felt nice.:-)
Pfft. A well-set-up Linux machine is the friendliest thing that the non-geek ever laid trheir hands on. If my sweet parents were still around, I'd be happy to set them up with a Mint machine that i had set up for them (and eliminating all of the setup choices in the process).
Well, pard, when Linux commercials start showing up on TV touting how it can do things better than Windows or Mac, then maybe you'll be onto something. The problem is that nobody outside of the geek community is aware of it.
I'd REALLY like to see Ubuntu buy a few TV ads just to help get the word out.
My experience too. But first, customers must be qualified:
Do they run Quicken or Quickbooks?
Do they require Office specifically, or could they get by with any office suite?
Do they use any websites which (damn the developers) require IE?
Do they need Photoshop?
If the answer to all four questions is no, then I build their system and provide an hour of training, and then make myself accessible over the phone. I very seldom get any calls afterwards. I do get raves from my customers though.:-)
...the American MAFIAA managed to get credit card access cut off to allofmp3.com. Bullied the credit card companies pretty badly, as I recall.
The identical music was available on another half-dozen or so Russian websites (not specifically demanded to be blocked, therefore credit card companies had no problem doing business with them and making money) within a day.
At my previous job at a family-owned billion dollar company, the CIO was far from a techie. As a matter of fact, he knew next to nothing about IT. Come to think of it, he didn't know much about business, either.
What you are is an arrogant douchebag.
"Do we have proof that mixing together chemicals creates life? Nope.
yes we do. We have for over 60 years. STFU and go home.
Can't wait to see your 60-year-old scientific proof that mixing chemicals together creates life.
Oh, in case you can't come up with it, then i cordially invite you to "STFU."
...is that the scientific allegation of spontaneous generation of life has never been proven. Do we have proof of evolution? Most definitely so. Do we have proof that mixing together chemicals creates life? Nope.
Ergo, until that is done repeatedly under laboratory conditions, atheists, your theory of the origin of life remains exactly that. A THEORY.
Ah, the attempt to put a new meaning to the word racist, and derail the conversation into a discussion on semantics. Cute. You're behind the times though, and even the Stormfront people have settled on just coining a new term, after their attempts to redefine the word failed pretty miserably.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, Gimp team! Can't wait to check it out. Add me to the list of folks who hated the multiple windows...
Geez, sounds like a crappy place to go vacationing...
...however, squirreling it away in a beer can would be heresy, and the torments of seven hells in the afterlife.
I have one word for you: Lexapro.
Re your signature, you don't have a mod stalker, you're simply a jerk.
Oh, one other thing, NVidia cards and their Linux drivers work wonderfully in Linux in my experience. If the customer has onboard or otherwise NVidia, I plunge ahead, confident that I can give them dual monitors and maximum resolution. Turning them on to the concept of multiple desktops is a strong selling point to make the OS switch.
LOL, just perpetuating a stereotype. First of all, I've just not seen the condescending crabbiness on the web that some talk about. The friendliest, most effective support I've found online concerns Linux and making stuff work. OTOH, Windows issues, more often than not, involve reinstalling of the OS. Ecch. Or my exact problem posted on a forum with no responses.
Question 1: Do any of your customers ever call to ask about Netflix or similar DRM-riddled-but-really-quite-awesome services that are all the rage with the kids these days? I'm sure that it can be hammered into functioning on Linux, but I'm not -ever- handholding someone through the process, and I strongly suspect that supporting it would be more costly and frustrating to them (the user) than paying me periodically to make Windows run properly again (and again).
Nope. In all honesty, I recommend dual-booting for laptops for that very reason, Netflix may well be a possibility for travelers. Making it work on Linux would be problematic. If someone wants to use it on their desktop, I recommend a wireless router and a Roku box instead. I've not run into anyone who watches TV on their PC, obviously that should be one other question to ask before touching anything.
Question 2: Peripheral hardware support seems to finally be getting back to the state it was in during the brief period in the 90s after Linux gained enough developer popularity to be a real useable system with random hardware, but before Winmodems became ubiquitous, complex 3D acceleration became common, and undocumented and non-replaceable hardware became somewhat the rule (Broadcom, in particular, should die in a fire).
Wireless is the biggest gotcha. Dell + Ubuntu usually works well, thanks to them pre-installing. The distro tends to play nice, at least with latops vintage 2006 and later, and thus propagates nicely down to the Ubuntu-based Mint as well. In all good conscience, I just don't try to make people happy with Unity, seeing's how the paradigm for the last 17 years has been draggable icons on the desktop and a start button.
USB-based wireless is not well supported, unfortunately. If that's what the customer has, research ahead of time is definitely needed. In one case, I simply couldn't make their 20 dollar piece of junk work. The customer willingly went and bought a thirty-dollar model that was well-supported, it only added a half-hour to my time, I still made a nice profit.
The only other hardware issues I've had are with all-in-one scanner/printers, specifically the scanners. I've never encountered a printer that didn't require more than a ppd download, readily available through Google searching. Most printers are nailed perfectly by the wizards (I'm familiar with Suse, Fedora, CentOS, Ubuntu, and Mint, both KDE and Gnome desktops). But scanners can be bugbears. Again, prior research is your friend. Some just aren't worth fighting with. Brother all-in-ones are my first recommendation to people who haven't yet committed to hardware, they have excellent Linux support from the manufacturer.
Perhaps the number one factor here is the customer's willingness to go for it. The only reluctance I've encountered is from my dearest wife. That's because the Gateway laptop she bought two years ago came infested with Vista, and I told her that her tech support needed to come from our son, who talked her into buying the infernal thing in the first place. After he left the nest, and the spyware problems became unbearable, i informed her that I would support her 90%-web-based computing only if I could remove the sludgy OS and replace it with Ubuntu. She agreed, and all has been well since, although occasional Flash fubars cause her to grumble. Indeed, HTML5 will be one of the best things to ever happen to desktop Linux, with the removal of Flash (and other proprietary crap like Silverlight).
In all other cases, folks were already anti-Windows, or else eager to try something that would insulate them from spyware, viruses, and trojans. Thus, any future bumps in the road would be viewed by them as necessary maintenance, not proof that this newfangled stuff is as bad as the comment trolls and the Microsoft shills have made it out to be.
I've actually gotten too busy with a career to chase down business, but I would charge $100 to save documents off of a fubarred Windows XP machine, install Ubuntu, and then train. If any would have failed (none did, a couple dozen or so), I would have charged them another c-note to put Windows back on, complete with Open Office, Firefox, and free bug protection. The key was always on a tag on the machine somewhere. There are a number of happy Linux users in my neighborhood, and I got some beer money doing something that felt nice. :-)
Heck yeah, ripping CD's is built right in to most distros, at least a half-dozen music apps out there will play nice with iPods.
Pfft. A well-set-up Linux machine is the friendliest thing that the non-geek ever laid trheir hands on. If my sweet parents were still around, I'd be happy to set them up with a Mint machine that i had set up for them (and eliminating all of the setup choices in the process).
Thanks for the link, swm. I don't play guitar, but if I did, I would buy nothing but Ernie Ball strings!
I'd REALLY like to see Ubuntu buy a few TV ads just to help get the word out.
If the answer to all four questions is no, then I build their system and provide an hour of training, and then make myself accessible over the phone. I very seldom get any calls afterwards. I do get raves from my customers though. :-)
"Instant karma's gonna get you! Gonna knock you right in the head!"
The identical music was available on another half-dozen or so Russian websites (not specifically demanded to be blocked, therefore credit card companies had no problem doing business with them and making money) within a day.
Buwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!
Peter Principle. Zuckerberg hit his peak as a swindling conniver in college, it's all downhill from here.....
However, he WAS a friend of the family. Hmm...
Turn him on to sudoku puzzles. Solving them strengthens the same brain cells that put 1's and 0's together. Seriously.
What you are is an arrogant douchebag. "Do we have proof that mixing together chemicals creates life? Nope. yes we do. We have for over 60 years. STFU and go home. Can't wait to see your 60-year-old scientific proof that mixing chemicals together creates life. Oh, in case you can't come up with it, then i cordially invite you to "STFU."
Congratulations. You are more open minded than the educated majority.
Ergo, until that is done repeatedly under laboratory conditions, atheists, your theory of the origin of life remains exactly that. A THEORY.
You call that a LOSS? Geez, you can do better than THAT!
I agree. And that's why i eagerly anticipate the public reaction to Windows 8! :-D
Ah, the attempt to put a new meaning to the word racist, and derail the conversation into a discussion on semantics. Cute. You're behind the times though, and even the Stormfront people have settled on just coining a new term, after their attempts to redefine the word failed pretty miserably.