This was sitting in my drafts folder, I guess I somehow forgot to send it. On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 8:40 AM, Jerry Rukavina <jerry.rukav...@attalin.com>wrote:
> Shawn, not everyone on this list is a propeller head, I am an average user. > > I am trying to learn but it is a bitch...I must be too dumb to understand. > > I am pretty certain that you are not in fact too dumb. > It is frustrating when things break or don't work at all and then having > to spend a ton of time trying to figure out the problems. Sometimes, and > lately all the time, that fix never happens, even though the 'helpful' > forums claim the fix is there. > > The how and why it broke is pretty important. Regardless of the platform, things never just break. Sometimes it is a bad patch (MS has had this problem too, you can't escape this possibility), sometimes bad software, and sometimes bad hardware (even something like a power supply that most people don't even know is in their computer). And try to get someone to actually work on the box to fix it! Where are the > millions of Linux users - not too many in Calgary, mythical I bet? I have > not found any commercial shops that work with Linux installs and > maintenance either. I could use some help today but can't find anyone. > > This is actually a problem in Calgary. When I run in to problems now, there are very few local people I can turn to. I interviewed at a company recently and they made this very same observation, that it was very hard to find anyone in Calgary with significant Linux experience. My time is better spent making a living instead of playing on the computer, > your suggestion for dummies to switch to windows is looking more > attractive. There would be more converts to Linux if things went easier > from the start and along the journey, imho. > > This is really the right answer regardless of the platform. Use what you know, and more importantly use what you can get support for. I was lucky in that in the early days there were a few of my friends that were also deep into Linux. We helped and learned from each other. This was also true of Windows (the server and desktop variants) and why I have the career I do today. What I will say is that I would challenge your assumption that Windows is actually easier/better. Have you actually tried to install Windows from scratch? Do you even have a Windows install disk (most computers do not even ship with disks these days, you have to burn your own). Tracking down drivers can be a serious pain, compounded by the fact that software and drivers may not support the latest versions of Windows. Just some personal experiences from the past year; - the fan control software for my water cooler does not yet support Windows 8. This hardware was released about the same time as Windows 8. - the printer that I have (hp 1018) does not have reliable Windows drivers and actually works better under Linux (this does happen sometimes). On Windows it crashes regularly, requiring me to manually clear the printer queue. I got this printer for free from a Windows user that thought it was broken. - Malware and virii. Ugh. What would you say if I told you that there is not a single anti-malware vendor that can do better than 60% effectiveness against 3 to 5 year old threats? We are not talking about the state of the art attacks here and 60% is kind of the best case here. Most of the time it is much much worse. - All the crapware that comes preloaded on a Windows PC. Not really Microsoft's fault, but a problem for the end user. - Drivers for a 3 year old tablet. Not that old. Sort of works with Windows 8. Sort of. At least the battery lasts longer than in Windows 7 and most programs run slightly faster. - Windows does not come with software that actually allows you to get something done. No word processor or spreadsheet programs, no image editing, graphics design or sound and video editors. While you can get a lot of the same open source packages on Windows and Mac, do you know where to safely download them from? A common problem right now is bundling free and open source software for Windows with adware or an outright virus. With most of the mainstream Linux distributions, they have mechanisms in place to help protect against this threat. The above is just a sampling that myself and those directly around me experienced in the past few months. The point is that there is no magic super awesome system. They all still suck to some degree, even after 30+ years of mainstream personal computing. Why I am drawn to Linux (and FLOSS in general), is that I have the ability to take ownership of my problems and find/fix/pay for/build my own solutions. For the record I can do most of this under Windows too, it is just a far less frustrating experience on open platforms for me at least. Microsoft discontinuing technet really does hurt.
_______________________________________________ clug-talk mailing list clug-talk@clug.ca http://clug.ca/mailman/listinfo/clug-talk_clug.ca Mailing List Guidelines (http://clug.ca/ml_guidelines.php) **Please remove these lines when replying
