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Windows cheaper then Linx? What! What a crock!


spiedra
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joehill has a fair point, but in my experiences, I have always managed to follow the window$/micro$oft documentation - though I will point out that I haven't needed to use their stuff often because I have found the vast majority of things that I have wanted to do under window$ intuitive enough for even an idiot like me to follow and achieve.

 

And yes, the linux is too hard to use is FUD, well, propaganda at the very least. But it is different. And the lack of appropriate paper documentation can make it seem hard. It's always going to be easier to jump around from page to page than to have to stop whatever you are trying to do and start digging around for the correct help site. Perhaps thats just personal preference???

 

DOlson is a different "cup of tea" entirely, from what I have seen of the "mandrake experience", is that it's produced using well written/tested tutorials. Laid out in an easily understandable way.

 

I think that someone should make him? a large star shaped badge in gold that has the words, "the wearer of this badge is an absolute f*****g marvel" on it. I cannot put into words, how much I think can be achieved by the linux movement with excellent sites like his. Shame there doesn't seem to be more public recognition of stuff like that.

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It is true that m$ has some better and easier to find documentation, but if you don't understand it, you're fux0red, because there's no other way of getting any. It's not the same story with linux, as documentation in linux is very easy to find, so if you don't understand one tutorial, move on to the next :). I do find that linux (or for me at least) has caused it's fair share of problems and things, though none so far have forced me to reformat my hard drive. Windows is a completely different story. After using it for a month I already I have to reformat because of viruses, slowing down, blablablabla. I've gotta say though, that after using windows for a few years, it has become a breeze to use and I can solve a lot more problems on it than on linux. Doesn't mean much coming from a newbie like me though I guess :).

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A few of my experiences.

 

In Windows I've lost some work before due to Windows simply dieing one day and taking the FAT32 partition with it. I lost alot of stuff, some things that I can not put a price tag on, priceless stuff. This has never happened in Linux.

 

I learned Windows after being used to a Mac, it was HARD to learn. the learning curve irked me(even with MS's 'wonderful' documentation, which didn't help all that much). But I got used to it and was able to do alot in a fairly short period of time, but I never was happy with the decreased stability. When the time came for me to use Linux, it took about the same amount of time for me to get used to Linux as it took me to get used to Windows.

 

My dad is fairly computer illiterate. He has minor experience in both SuSE Linux 7.3 and Windows ME(his experiences with Windows were before his experiences with Linux). Guess which one he finds easier to use? If you guessed SuSE Linux, you were right.

 

 

My point is that any OS will seem hard when you are switching from another OS. It is a fact of life, simply because they are different. The only exception could be an experienced Linux user going to some other UNIX clone or vice versa, they aren't that different.

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Again, more valid comments from both Heru and Liono.

 

I have heard a fair amount of stuff about people having window$ based disasters.

 

I suppose I am lucky in that the only disasters that I have experienced are to have run out of cigarettes/booze/coffee when using it!!!!!

 

Heru's comments about his father echo my older brother who is an IT professional and resident linux bore (deadrat). He has said to me on more than one occassion about changing OS, and that if someone had only ever used linux - of whatever flavour - then they would probably find window$ a total pain in the arse to learn.

 

so I suppose it is down to personal knowledge and the way an individual's own "logic circuits" are wired in the brain.

 

regards

 

John

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Guest JeremyG

All these previous posts are all well and good. Most are saying that it just takes time to learn the now os. But I am a fairly new noobie when it comes to Linux. I have always used M$ and I can't really say I had a lot of problems. But my only problem with Linux isn't the fact that it is hard to setup and stuff like that, it's problems like having unsupported hardware that Linux just doesn't have the drivers for. Most people can just get better components, but I just finished paying off my Toshiba Laptop and I can't exactly just get a new compatible card for Linux. These are the main problems with Linux that I can see. Us noobies trying to not only learn this new os, but also trying to find supported software for our various unsupported hardware. But that is not enough to make me give up on Linux just yet.

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Oh, so Linux must be free AND user friendly?

 

Unfortunately the very nature of an open source operating system means that it is going to take more insight to use.

 

Only a fool would believe that M$ products are cheaper in the long run then Linux. M$ is on the run and trying last minute tactics to stunt the spread of Linux. The Halloween docs were proof of this. They really do not know what to do.

 

The way I see it going is a strong core of proffesionals setting up and administering systems running Linux being used by everyday people who do not have the time or patience to learn Linux. Once a system is setup it can be very simple to use.

 

I think this is the future of the personal computer, a device with preloaded software meeting specific requirements.

 

I personally like the feeling of belonging to an exclusive group of people running Linux, unfortunately there is nothing exclusive about the group anymore and the challenge now is: How are we going to change our operating system to accomodate all these people that want to use it but do not know how. We have to, not growing means death.

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About three weeks ago I made a switch to Gentoo and love it. But in the switch I got to see what Mandrake actually does for you and does very well. The install takes care of configuration quite well, for Gentoo I had to do it partly by XFconfig and partly by hand as I had to make my scroll wheel work. It always just worked in mandrake. To get sound I had to muck around failing getting alsa going I broke down and compiled sound into the kernel. Getting printing going was a nightmare as my printer is not supported but under mandrake I just tried out a couple of drivers until it worked well in greyscale.

 

There are many things that Mandrake does that you would not even think of. The actual install of Gentoo is not hard you basically just follow the instructions and type what they say (making slight adjustments for your customizations) But mandrake's is way way easier, just answer a few questions and relax :)

 

Gentoo will not be a distro for the masses, but Mandrake is. Gentoo has some very very nice features though... like portage, I dont think I will go back to rpms after portage.

 

I have difficulty saying that there should be a standard way to distribute packages as the choice of ways to do things is what makes linux so great. But the only thing that makes me consider a standard packaging system is for people who are really new and wont know things intitially and dont want to take the time to learn them.

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I just bought and partially rebuilt a new machine (I tweak all the hardware in my machines).

 

It's an AMD Althlon XP 2100+ with 512MB DDR RAM, GeForce2 MX400 64MB AGP, SoundBlaster Live! 5.1, KT333 chipset on the motherboard.

 

Primary Boot Disk; Linux (60GB Maxtor)

In Linux,... near flawless installation (a problem that I created and sinced solve with some help from this board). I just get one stupid error message on startup of sshd and the killall function at shutdown, but other than that as far as the way it runs when its up, perfecto...

 

I set up a second, swappable hard drive for Windoze (40GB, also Maxtor)

In Windoze 98 (1st edition), problems with installing the graphics drivers, then problems installing the motherboard drivers, then problems installing the sound support, and problems with DirectEcchs 8.1,... I get programs dying on me for no reason. I get problems when programs shut down. I got a problem with my modem (an external serial), and Windoze demand to startup internet connections on boot (it decided to do this on its own without consulting me). I finally solved that by deleting the dial-up connections and starting new ones from scratch (good thing I don't use Windoze on the internet a lot). Then I had problems using old patches that I had downloaded a long time ago. All of a sudden, they had corrupt compression in their packages (they ran fine on the old machine). I had to download new ones. One of them was an update for Internet Explorer 5.5,... which I have come to learn is no longer supported. The version that comes on the Win98 install disks was locking up on certain pages. So I had to switch to Mozilla for Windoze (satisfying to not be using IE). I had problems installing my old gamepad drivers, so had to download 10 MB worth of new software,... which works buggy (graphical hiccups on the configuration program).

 

All in all, I am glad to be using Linux primarily. I will bet getting a WineX subscription soon so that I don't have to boot up to Windoze as often to play games... (despite what some of you feel about WineX, I disagree and think it's a great idea). Windoze is not as easy as most people think, nor is it as intuitive to use.

 

PS With Linux, I was able to keep all my old user data by just dumping over my old /home partition... try THAT in Windoze!!!

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As previously mentioned, a lot you people have "prior knowledge" and as far as I am concerned, that's a good enough reason to prefer linux - which ever flavour - my suggestion would be that when a distro is updated, the usual bi-polar install method's should be supplimented with a "total novice" facility that would detect/install all the relevant drivers etc etc.

 

The reason being, that if there is a common install facility of this nature, then it is irrelevant which distro that the n00b chooses. If all the various distro producers had this facility albeit produced by themselves, it would make the linux even more fragmented than it is at the moment like unix was during the rise of micro$oft.

 

It may sound a little "communist" but people only get what they want by sticking together. There are very few individuals or even companies who get to dictate everything that they want. One of the few that come to mind is the micro$oft corporation. And I have a pretty good idea as to what most of you think of them.

 

But, and it's a big but, that is one of the main reasons for their success. It doesn't matter what those of you who do the system admin task's feel,

M$ have made most of their money by being easy to use. I appreciate that M$ product's may be a nightmare to manage, but for the basic "user task's" they are relatively easy.

 

This is why I applaud the LSB people, at least they have recognised this, whereas those who insist on "doing their own thing" are doomed to having a small following of enthusiasts.

 

I mean, there are those who argue the difference between rpm and apt, now I can't say which is best, as I have only ever used SuSE and mandrake which both support rpm and the debian apt thing is a bit of a mystery to me. But, I am pretty sure that neither method is perfect, but it is better that having to try and install manually. That would just hinder the uptake of linux.

 

I feel that it would be sensible to get an nice easy "point and click" facility up and running, and greater numbers of people using linux, and worry about excessive development later. With larger numbers of people using linux, the distro producers make more money and end up having a better chance of "getting it right".

 

easy and inter-operable are good enough reasons to follow that route. there will always be a central following of knowledgeable people who want to learn to do it all themselves. Fine, that's their perogative. But if it's easy and inter-operable, then the rest of the user world can get on and do their thing.

 

The easy and inter-operable thing are corner stones of M$ and yet another reason for their success. Apart from changing the home user from using FAT32 to NTFS (which I suspect they new they would have to do eventually) most stuff works on just about any version of windows. Yes, it does have built in obselescence, but so does the car you drive, so does your TV and hifi, so does your mobile phone. That just the "market" doing it's very best to get as much money out of you as it can.

 

I'll say one thing for linux people, because you tend to have greater knowledge of how your machine works, you can usually spot the micro$oft propaganda quicker that "general users". Which can only be a good thing!

 

bradcarter's comment about changing to gentoo, well, gentoo seems to be the "flavour of the month" with a majority of the members of my LUG and they have nothing but good things to say about it, but I would point out that there seem to be some seriously knowledgable people in my LUG (I usually just read the e-mail and leave it at that, I would be too embarassed to attempt anything else, most of them seem to have at least some professional IT experience/knowledge/training! and I suspect that a nugget like me may inject a large amount of impatience on their part, so i'll just stick to asking them for assistance when I get really stuck!)

 

 

regards

 

John

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As previously mentioned, a lot you people have "prior knowledge" and as far as I am concerned, that's a good enough reason to prefer linux - which ever flavour - my suggestion would be that when a distro is updated, the usual bi-polar install method's should be supplimented with a "total novice" facility that would detect/install all the relevant drivers etc etc.

 

The reason being, that if there is a common install facility of this nature, then it is irrelevant which distro that the n00b chooses. If all the various distro producers had this facility albeit produced by themselves, it would make the linux even more fragmented than it is at the moment like unix was during the rise of micro$oft.

 

Prior knowledge is not unique to Linux users. But it should be instructive as to which operating system is created better,... that so many experienced computer people would prefer it to Micro$haft Wintendo.

 

That said, many distributions are fast approaching the goal of "plug and play" (always plug and pray if you ask me... no matter what OS). And there is a concerted effort to have a little standardizations in Linux. But one of the major benefits of an OS like Linux is that no one is dictating how you accomplish something.

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Guest starbane

95% of 12 businesses found TCO of Linux higher?

 

I'm sure he 'meant' it as a figure of speech, but how did 11.4 businesses have a higher TCO?

 

Not that it isn't a blatant lie, anyway.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Is this http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/28408.html what you where on about starbane? As I couldn't find any reference to the 95% of 12 businesses that you mentioned in your last post.

 

Whatever, it still makes a monkey of the majority of micro$oft's claims about cost's etc

 

regards

 

John

 

p.s. also please note the heavy handed use of irony and sarcasm in the registers article - good isn't it LoL :lol:

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