On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 12:01:58PM -0500, Vikki Roemer wrote: > Yeah, didn't somebody post a link to it on the mailing list when the > article first came out around June? I really found it funny because I > had just started using Linux around that time and I understood it, but > other people who I had thought had been using Debian and/or Linux in > general for a while didn't really get it. :)
Well, what didn't help that parody's case is that there are media companies with far more reputation than they deserve have historically written equally atrocious articles about Linux. Those of us who were still in school when geek profiling became the fad in schools realised it was a parody and many, myself included, found it to be in extremely poor taste. > Of course, OTOH, I'm a teenager and (at the time) my parents were > pretty clueless about Windows and Linux. "What's so bad about > Windows? I've never had problems with it" and "How can you get a > *full*, *working* operating system for *free*? Everyone else charges > for theirs. Well, if you really want it, you can get your own > computer-- but don't come complaining to us when you find out you get > what you pay for" were common arguments I had to deal with. I owned my house's computer, and when I got a new one, I gave my folks my old one. They ended up putting WinME on it simply because my sister had to use some Windows-specific CAD software in high school; I think they're going to switch back to Linux after they get a beefier box and the debian-installer auto-detects hardware, which is thier only complaint about Debian. I offered to help, but they want to go it alone this time. My mom's one of the folks Nike IT throws beta boxes at, so she's a little better than the average user, she thinks apt is a whole lot better than driving to Fred Meyer and chunking down a few dozen bucks for an upgrade. My sister's a fairly average user, but a huge graphics freak, but totally fails to comprehend how people think Photoshop is better than the GIMP, especially when it comes to support[1]. Score! [1] She used to like Photoshop. But then she wanted to buy her own copy. She came back from Fry's empty-handed and ranted at me with, "They want me to pay several hundred bucks for Photoshop, and if something goes wrong, they charge a king's ransom for each phone call! And I remember you telling me the horror stories about the Adobe guys from the outsource shop you work at, so it's clearly not going into training or paying those guys decent..." -- .''`. Baloo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> : :' : proud Debian admin and user `. `'` `- Debian - when you have better things to do than to fix a system
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