For the TL;DR crowd: Zealotry does not help the cause. It hurts. Reality check time. I suggest zealots take note. The way you and I think is not how most mainstream people think. If you insist on closing your eyes to how the people complaining see things, don't be surprised when they continue to complain and just get pissed off.
If you tell them someone all their concerns about Linux are moot, they may *believe you*. That sets up false expectations. Then they try Linux and discover it *isn't* just like MS Windows. It's better in many ways, worse in some others. But you told them their concerns were a non-issue, when it turns out they still matter. At best, they will feel let down. At worst, they will go back to Windows, because they will feel Linux lies about what it can deliver. When I promote Linux, I always make sure I make it clear that like is not all roses and sunshine. I disclose the weaknesses. But I also sell the strengths. Freedom, and low cost, and robustness, and security, and choice, and all that good stuff. It's then up to the listener to decide if they want to give it a try, making a well-informed decision. Since no long message about computer politics is complete without a car analogy: I didn't buy a Subaru Impreza because I thought it was a *perfect* car. I bought one because I thought it was the best choice for what I wanted. Specific points follow: On Thu, Mar 4, 2010 at 11:43 AM, Brian Chabot <br...@datasquire.net> wrote: > No gaming support - Mandriva has an entire product line devoted to > gaming, but the gaming developers didn't work with it and the end users > didn't try it out. It was subsequently dropped. Are you serious? I hate to break it to you, but if it was dropped, then that still counts as not having it. What people mean when they say this is that they can't go into a store and pick up a box for World of Warcraft or Call of Duty or whatever, and find "Linux" listed on the side of the box as supported. They don't care about some French company nobody has every heard of[1] that once tried to do something with gaming, but failed. [1] = This is is called "hyperbole". > Little/no OEM support - Mandriva has had an OEM certification program > for years. Irrelvant. What matters is who and how many OEMs are supporting Linux. Nobody cares if the distro has an OEM certification program if none of the OEMs are actually using it. Now, some good progress has been made here. The big OEMs are starting to do actual work with Linux. Even if it's just to leverage against Microsoft, it still counts. But it's still rather meager in comparison to what's available for MS Windows. For example, Dell offers Linux pre-installed on some computers, but their support for what they're installing is practically non-existent. They basically refer you to Canonical/Red Hat. (Dell's server Linux support is a lot more useful.) For a home user, this can be a big deal. However, as more and more OEMs move to a pay-for-support model for anything beyond warranty component replacement and OS re-installation, it may become less of a distinction. Whether you're paying Dell to support your MS Windows home PC or paying Canonical to support your Linux home PC, you're paying for support. So Linux may achieve support parity not by getting better support, but instead because Windows is trending towards worse support. I also still hold out some small hope for a resurgence in local small system builders. They can provide a personal touch that big companies will never be able to, and they're generally a lot more open to supporting Linux. However, quality stuff costs more, and most people still shop based on price alone. As long as Best Buy can make great profit selling computer-shaped boxes of poop, it's going to be tough for small system builders to compete. > No migration tool - Mandriva has has a built-in migration tool for quite > some time now - Transfugdrake - right in the System area of the control > center. Yah, Ubuntu has one, too. Either his information is out-of-date, or we simply misunderstand what he's asking for. I suspect the former. > Free tech support dries up - http://www.mandrivausers.org People referring to this generally mean a local peer group that can provide hands-on assistance, not web forums. Everybody knows somebody who knows enough about MS Windows to at least install software and configure an Internet connection. It's harder to find Linux people. Not impossible -- look at this group! -- but it's not the easy pickings that MS Windows has. Only time and adoption will change this. I'm incredulous about his claim that Mac's no longer have this problem, though. I don't think their market penetration is *that* much bigger than Linux. > Driver/hardware confusion - For 90% of hardware out there, you don't > need it. I would dispute your claim. A lot of popular hardware still doesn't work well with Linux, especially sound, wireless, and video hardware. NVidia's drivers involve the proprietary, binary-only nightmare, and they're often the best of a bad lot. Wireless is still a crap shoot if you just pick an adapter at random. My Intel mobo's sound sort-of works, but it's always quirky. Yes, you can find hardware on store shelves that works with Linux, if you do your homework. The whole *point* is that (1) most people don't do their homework, because (2) they can buy anything and know it will support MS Windows. > "Also, the fact that there’s no such thing as a “works with > Linux” logo..." Yes, there is. I have a bunch of stickers with the one > I designed and I'm sure there are others. He is referring to software logo certification programs, such as Microsoft's Windows logo programs. Not what you print on your inkjet. (The value of such logos is debatable, but a lot of people still shop for them.) -- Ben _______________________________________________ gnhlug-discuss mailing list gnhlug-discuss@mail.gnhlug.org http://mail.gnhlug.org/mailman/listinfo/gnhlug-discuss/
