Jim Lux wrote: > I call BS. It is a royal pain just to reinstall your existing > applications on a new computer, staying in the Windows world. There > are lots and lots of Windows only applications out there that are > quite useful, if not necessary. >
> For instance, I use 4NEC2 as a front end for NEC analysis. It's not > available for Linux, and I'm not particularly eager to go back to > writing and reading bare NEC decks. Works fine here in Linux using a tool called wine. It lets you use your "must have" windows applications under linux, until a better alternative presents inself. > > I use Microsoft Word's equation editor, reviewing, and cross > referencing capabilities a lot, and open office is incompatible for > some reason. I haven't dug into why, but since I need to generate MS > Word documents for others to review and work on, I'm not likely to > change, nor am I interested in spending lots of time figuring out how > to make it compatible. I have no idea on this one, so you might have a point here. > > What about hot-syncing my Treo with my PC? Works fine. Using a bluetooth radio link to do the sync. > > What about support for my Tablet PC? I'd hate to give up my stylus and > the ability to take notes on a tablet. Works fine in Linux. Linux support touch screens and the like. > > Then, there's those horrible, but necessary, websites that are IE > only. All too many manufacturers of components put their data out with > slick IE only web interfaces. Why, I do not know (just ignorance on > their part, or they hire a low budget web developer who is MS centric). This may or may not be true. I have just never found such a site yet. > > > What about compatiblity with my co-workers? I work somewhere where we > have a variety of OSes (Win, Mac, Linux, Solaris, etc.) and people > that are non-Windows users tend to wind up having a Windows machine > too, just to interoperate. (This just moves the pain of interoperation > to just one person, rather than inflicting it on many people) The > occasional incompatibility between Powerpoint on the Mac and > Powerpoint on the PC alone is a pain, and they're both MS products. There are incompatibilities between MS Office 2000 and MS Office 2003 both on the Windows platform, so you cannot really use this complaint against Linux. > > > So, if you are running in your own isolated world, you can probably > find functional equivalents for most applications that are Linux > compatible, and your work can go along just as well or better. > However, many people are in a Windows environment at work, and would > just as soon use the same applications at home as at work, especially > if their life isn't wrapped up in computers and they derive no special > thrill from being multi-OS-lingual. > > So, I call BS on the claim of "no significant pain to move from > Windows to Linux". It just ain't so, which means that if you want > people to move, you have to provide not only comparable functionality, > but also make the move to Linux (and back to Windows) relatively > painless. It's the move back that is especially important, because you > may find that Linux just isn't going to work for you. > You clearly have your view, and I have mine, I guess we can call this quits and end this thread. :-) > > Jim, W6RMK > _______________________________________________ FlexRadio mailing list FlexRadio@flex-radio.biz http://mail.flex-radio.biz/mailman/listinfo/flexradio_flex-radio.biz Archive Link: http://www.mail-archive.com/flexradio%40flex-radio.biz/ FlexRadio Homepage: http://www.flex-radio.com
