Raphael Borg Ellul Vincenti wrote:
If you wish to provide an upgrade path without the culture shock, you
should invest in Lindows or Xandros. These two companies sole aim is
to ease the migration path of users. This is not only about the ease
of installation. This goes into things like: I would like to use my
XXXX favorite app in windows under Linux. Can I ? Thats where Wine and
Crossover come in. You don't have to explain to a user where and how
the system installs stuff. What you need is a consistent "portal" on
how to install things.
Of course, you have to pay for the CNR service provided by Lindows. I.E:
You have to pay for a service to be able to download programs which you
could otherwize get free. What you pay for is ease of use. For that
matter, I might as well use Windows.
Now we can go on and on endlessly quibbling that this distribution
does it better than that. I reason it out this way. If you want ease
of use, and you can afford it, then stick to Windows. If you are
willing to get more out of your IT investment, then you can might as
well allocate part of your investment in yourself by including some
good linux training.
Now here's the problem. When "The Linux Desktop" is mentioned, people
automatically go towards a desktop running linux at company XYZ. I'm not
speaking about companies here, I'm speaking about home users. The kind
of people who don't go to training courses. For these types of users,
Linux has a long way to go.
If you want ease of use yet a desktop which is way more powerful than
Windows, then pay for a good distribution. Pay for support. Thats why
its there. The problem with Maltese culture is that people grumble
when they have to fork out a cent for software or software support.
"Pay for support, thats why its there". Since when does product support
make an Operating System easier to use? Support is there to help you do
stuff. It doesn't make the OS easier, it helps you do it the difficult
way. Yes, you learn, but the OS is still difficult to use.
How come no one commented on the several issues (up2date, mandrake
non-standard, difficulty installing oo.org etc...) I mentioned in my
previous email? Maybe because there's no commenting on them, it's the truth?
Ok... I have had enough of ranting. And don't blame me.... Angelo
started after all. :-)
This is not ranting, this is debating hehe :D It's not like we're in
parliament here, we dont band on tables hehehe. Thank god for that.
How would you explain to a Windows user "Hey, I've installed
OpenOffice for you. If you want to upgrade, simply download the
tarball, use tar xvzf (in the terminal of course [oh, dont forget to
login as root] and un-extract the files, and run the setup. Oh, then
logout from root and run your user setup. Oh, the icons won't come in
the kde menu automatically, so you'll have to add them
yourself........... etc... etc... ad nauseum"?
I could give, literally hundreds of ways in which Linux lacks behind
in usability. I'm a Linux advocate, I love Linux, hate Microsoft and
all the other stuff.. But I am awake enough to smell the coffee -
Linux usability sucks.
As for running Windows applications, well, I won't comment on that as
I've never had to do it myself since I own a copy of Windows just for
those 1 or 2 programs anyway.
Keith
P.S: This was not a flame
Philip Serrracino Inglott wrote:
Dear Angelo,
This posting sounds a bit like a flame bait.
It is well known that MS benchmark Linux. The two systems do influence
each other in many ways.
Just think of the look and feel of KDE and the fact that ASP supporst
Perl-like regexps.
As to how obvious the obvious is: you mention ease of installation,
presumebly you mean ease of installation
on an avarage PC bought recently with a plain vanilla configuration and
periferals. I wonder what the results
would be like if you compared installing on cd-rom less or screen less
workstations.
What i'm tring to say is that the word "Wins" does not make much sense
when comparing different categories.
If you race a Landrover against a ferrari the ferrari wins! ( as
long as
you are not racing up selmun hill)
Hmmm I wonder what my girl friend would think if she knew you called
her
a geek :-P she uses
gnome without any hassle! and the version of linux you are looking for
is probabbly a
KDE setup. It will not run windows applications of course (excluding
the
use of WINE)
but then agin I'd like a version of windows with that extra feature
called "no cost" too.
Thanks for the feedback anyway
Philip
Angelo Dalli wrote:
Hi guys,
just had an interesting chat with some people working for
Microsoft Research... (whom I shall not name)
And surprise, surprise -- they actually do benchmark Windows
against Linux :-) In fact they have a "Linux Advisory Group" within
MS :-)
Their results just confirm the obvious: in certain areas, like
storage handling and uptime reliability, Linux wins. On usability
and ease of installation, Windows wins.
I would love to have a version of Linux that can support Windows
applications seamlessly and that can allow normal users to actually
*use it* without all the hassle involved, but I think that for now
Linux will remain a server and/or geek oriented OS.
Cheers,
Angelo Dalli
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Keith Vassallo
Registered GNU/Linux User #290991
http://www.keithvassallo.net
