> People do want a work out of the box machine, and Ubuntu isnt totally > out of the box, it does need other bits and pieces added, and unless you > know that, it doesnt work how most people are used to having a machine > work. Unless you spend a lot of time reading through the pages and pages > of the Ubuntu wiki, you wouldnt know that there are extra repositories > that you need, to get certain things that you have already installed on > a Windows machine. I went for months before I got shown about medibuntu. > The forum helps in some respects but you get told on there, read the > wiki, or plough through searches on the forum, and then come back and > ask, if you cant get it to work. > > I wanted to try get connected apart from my network at home through > wireless, you cannot do that without knowing how to use the terminal, > dongles from any of the main mobile carriers, wont work, just by > plugging it in, so no wireless outside of the house. I had to get told > about Bluetooth and Joiku spot, but Joiku spot wouldnt work with my 8.04 > version, but it does now. > > Each upgrade, could essentially cause the computer not to work. I went > from partitioning on 8.04 working to upgrading to 8.10, and not working. > My only visit to the London Lug and two people working on the machine > couldnt get it to work, froze the minute it got to the log in screen, > uninstalled the installed from a different cd, not a chance, then 9.10 > came along, and it works again, but without a lot of the desktop extras. > Its the graphics card its not good enough. I have to thank Michael > Fletcher for spending quite a lot of time on the phone and pc to pc > working with it to get it to work. Same with adding Ubuntu onto my > netbook, it came with Linux lite, that took a while, and a lot of work > to get it how it is now. Thanks to Michael again. > > There is something to Ubuntu not being a contender like Windows and Mac, > so many people take their Linux machines back, because they cant get it > to connect to their internet connection, and that is before you even > start with everything else. When I got my little netbook from the shop, > they warned me, you do realise it most likely wont work, keep the > receipt. This particular shop no longer stocks this netbook with Linux, > because they had so many bought back. > > I see what you're saying, but to balance the viewpoint, many people (esp. when talking about Linux) seem to gloss over a lot of Windows failings.
Windows "just works out of the box". Well kind of, once you've installed an office suite, and some antivirus, antimalware, a codec pack in case you're not using MS approved codecs, a pile of drivers (for your printer, scanner, 3G dongle, graphics tablet), a better browser and mail client. Then (like my sister last week) you spend £30 on a game (Sims 3) and it doesn't run (keeps crashing). The handbooks says "update your drivers", but as Sims 3 didn't come with a driver CD (like the printer/scanner/graphics table) you're lost and call your bro. He digs out the right page on the HP website, writes large email detailing what to do. This doesn't work, Sims 3 still crashes. This time the unpaid tech support gets the drivers direct from Intel, this doesn't work either as the laptop is whining that the existing drivers have been 'specially modified by the manufacturer to improve performance on this computer' and won't let the Intel drivers install. Another large email detailing uninstalling the drivers, rebooting, installing the Intel drivers, etc. This fixes the issue, but leaves the screen set to a whacky resolution, another email later, the Sims finally works. I'd like to say this kind of thing is uncommon, but if you're 'unpaid tech support' you see an awful lot of it, if you're paid tech support, you'll see this kind of thing daily. So - 'works out of the box' I wouldn't exactly say it does. I've been using Windows professionally since V2.0 demo came out... and it hasn't exactly been bed of roses... Lee -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
