On 5/9/05, Shlomi Fish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> But there's always a possibility. In Windows, it's impossible to keep several
> versions of the same DLL due to the lack of symbolic links. And most packages
> come in installers, that install all the required DLLs along with the
> programs. (there is no dependency resolution). But it' possible that it's no
> longer a problem as before. (possibly because the development of the DLLs has
> become more stable).
I'm not that deep into Windows administration, I just know that, as
far as I noticed,
I never had to bother with it.
> Generally, a system should be expected to avoid having to rely on such
> mechanisms and be secure by default. There can always be a new kind of
> spyware that the anti-spyware software could not detect in time. As for
> firewall, generally, the system should be secure even with all the services
> exposed. I agree that firewalls/NATs/etc. are useful (even for Linux
First - I share your feeling that it's silly that Microsoft sell a broken OS and
then sort of patch it by giving anti-virus software to try to catch the slime
which sleeped through the holes in its basic OS, and half the computer's
resources are wasted on constant security checks instead of on doing
real work.
Second - My point is that this is not the sort of argument that people like
my mom would understand or care about. All they know is that in Windows
they more-or-less manage to do what they want and in Linux they don't
(or at least if they can do just the same things in Linux when why bother to
switch).
> systems). But for example, if you browse the web with a vulnerable browser,
> that allows malicious sites to execute code on your machine, then all the
> firewalls in the world won't prevent your machine from getting infected by a
> trojan.
Actually current firewalls/proxies and routing boxes DO scan for viruses and
melicious code while you surf as well. Dig the network for specific examples,
I can't remember them off the top of my head.
> Possibly. However, the possibility always remains. And since the source code
> is available, there's more possibility than someone among the many developers
> interested in open-source will do that for you in time. With closed-source
> software you have to rely on the vendor's whims.
Again - both of us seem to view these matters just the same but, again
- as far as his target audience is concerned, the paragraph above might
as well be writen in Kazakh script from the 1st century BC, and sang as a
Haiku Liryc. They won't understand even the basic terms used in it
("source code", "developers", "open-source", "closed-source"), let along
the relations between them and what's wrong with it.
Get down to earth for these people if you want to win them over.
>
> > > 2. Price - no need to pay for anything including upgrades. All software
> > > can be installed from the base system.
> >
> > How is BSA doing these days in Israel? Not a big point for OSS (yet?).
> >
>
> Still, if you install a non-legit version of Windows, you cannot use Windows
Which most people do at home today.
> Upgrade (without various tricks). You cannot get support for this version of
> Windows, and you cannot contact the vendor for help.
How much has this prevented people from installing Windows illegally
on their home
computer and call "the next door teenage geek" (AKA TNDTG) when they
catch a virus?
Even more so - since for most people TNDTG is "technical support", you
might better make sure that enough of these TNDTG know Linux :)
>
> And the price is a big issue for medium or large organizations who wish to
> deploy proprietary software on their systems.
Is this the audience of this argument? As far I remember the beginning was
about convincing a private person.
>
> > > 3. Community - the Linux and Open Source Community is very fun,
> > > supportive. There are many resources available for getting help or for
> > > learning more.
> >
> > Again - do "this Magimix Mixer has a community of 20,000 active users in
> > Israel" sound like a convincing argument from a sales druid in the Shekem?
> > That's more or less the attitude you should address.
>
> The point is that you can get very good support from the community, which has
> a larger amount of knowledge than the equivalent one for proprietary
> software. (due to the availability of source, and other factors - see ESR's
> "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" Series).
>
> And I'm not only talking about Israel. You can always subscribe to an
> international forum dealing with your software of choice, or even to a
> foreign local forum that happens to speak English.
And I'm not only talking about linux-il subscribers. I'm talking about people
like my mother, who's still not sure when should she click the right mouse
and when the left mouse buttons, and you want her to go out on the net and
ask meaningful questions?
Get real, c'mon. :^)
>
> > As for "fun" - just look at the abuse someone received for sending a
> > little-awkwardly worded job ad over here.
>
> I agree that there are always exceptions. Some forums are more friendly than
> others. You can always find a place where people will welcome you.
*I* can, I go to the net dozens of times every day to lookup answers to the
problems I encounter, be it in programming C++ at work or convincing
Ubuntu to display Hebrew in PowerPoint presentations sent to me at home,
but as much as my mother made big advances in the 6 months she got her
first computer, I don't expect her to be able to cope with installing and
using Firefox or Thunderbird, as much as I'd love her to do this.
>
> >
> > (BTW - a linux-jobs mailing list is long overdue, IMHO).
> >
>
> Perhaps. But how do we convince everyone to subscribe to it, and people to
> post jobs there instead of here (especially if not everyone subscribe there)?
> Perhaps we should just establish an etiquette that says that one should not
> comment on job ads that are not to one's liking. (unless of course they are
> lacking in details, and the respondant wishes to cause the original poster to
> clarify what's the job is all about).
Isn't this the whole point of a separate mailing list? (That
interested people will
subscribe while uninterested people will be spared?).
>
> Furthermore, now that the job tracker has an RSS Feed, I see less a point in
> establishing a mailing list.
Good move.
I think it would still be convenient to have an e-mail mirror of this
data, so I'll
be able to get it all in my gmail account instead of having to configure yet
another live-bookmark and remember to look at it.
>
> > > 4. Powerful Command Line and Scripting.
> >
> > See above. It might appeal to the kind of people who have to take apart any
> > piece of hardware the comes through their door, and spend their weekends
> > tweaking their car's engine, but how many such people do you know? I only
> > heard about such a person in the media once over the last month.
>
> Actually, I happen to chat over AIM with a guy whose brother (who is a
> programmer) introduced him to Linux because it causes less problems and does
> not have spyware, etc. He now happily uses Linux for some time now, is
> comfortable with the command line, and he recently switched from SUSE Linux
> to Debian testing, conducting the installation on his own. And he's a young
> guy - in the 12th grade now, not one of them veteran DOS hackers. (like me).
>
> I am not the kind a guy who takes apart pieces of hardware, or tempers with
> cars. I am very much afraid and clueless in such physical activity. I like my
> machines working, and if they break, I send them to repairs or buy new ones.
> But I cannot get enough of working in the command line, automating common
> tasks, and tweaking every bit in my computer. My father, on the other hand,
> is very clueful in electronical and mechanical stuff, and he still uses
> Windows, and does not try to learn how to program or automate common tasks.
> (he relies on me for that). So it's a bad analogy.
Just my case - my sort-of analogy was that people look at programming/tweaking/
configuring their computer as sort of activity similar to
taking-apart/tweaking/improving
pieces of machinery. And you came up with an example of someone who LIKES doing
the later but treats the former as "just make it work for me, will you?" :)
>
> The command line is very powerful and convenient once you get the hang of it.
> By learning how to program in Shell/Perl you can make your life much easier.
> Doing all this is much better done on Linux.
Again, who are you trying to convince? Me? You don't have to convince me,
I worked with UNIX since the days of 24x80 vt100 terminals with 9600 baud
serial connections to Vax 11/750, and the best you could do with windowing
was to split Gosling Emacs buffers horizontally (we didn't have vertical splits
until GNU Emacs came along).
But my mother won't appreciate command-line at all (and so would I, if I'll have
to explain to her what to do with it over the phone).
>
> >
> > > 5. Integrability - everything can be made to work together.
> >
> > As far as people are concerned - Windows does a better job of this right
> > now. A couple of days ago a fellow programmer told me "On Windows you just
> > double-click and it works".
> > Face it - "double click and it just works" is our "competition". There
> > are distros
> > which come close to this (Ubuntu? Suse?). When this becomes the rule then
> > you can start talking again.
> >
>
> Well, it's hard for me to tell, because I use the command line for many
> things.
Hey, wake up - stay in focus - the original question was "how to
convince someone
to switch from Windows to Linux?" (more or less).
>
> > > 6. Eye Candy/Themes/Skins/etc.
> >
> > Most users (I'm thinking of my mother right now) don't care about this.
> > They can use a computer for ten years and when you'll look at their desktop
> > you'll see the same default green-hill and window decorations as if the
> > computer was installed yesterday (which might as well be true :), and tons
> > of files they never
> > bothered to clean off their desktop...
> >
>
> Heh. But once you get used to changing skins, you can never go back...
Again, my mother (and, frankly, even me) couldn't care less.
(I'm the sort of guy who switches the background image when his
s/o asks him "why is this yur background?", I hardly see it because
I like full-screen windows for my main application (my age begins
to show)).
>
> > > 7. Virtual Workspaces. (The MSVDM solution for Windows sucks ass).
> >
> > I always have them on. I find myself hardly switching between them. They
> > are going to be a major source of confusion for people who don't know what
> > they mean.
>
> Well, I use Virtual Workspaces a lot, and switch between them constantly. Most
> people will become used to using them once they understand what they are all
> about. (which takes 5 minutes).
>
> > OS-X like "Expose" is the right way to go :)
> >
>
> I'm not familiar with it, but I believe I saw it in action in one of the
> presentations in YAPC, where the presentor used a Mac OS X laptop. He could
> switch to a screen full of small screenshots of the applications and switch
> to different applications like that.
Yes, that's expose. And these are not just screen-shots but live, "zoomed out"
application windows. Extremly neat and easy to stay oriented.
There is skippy for X11 which tries to simulate it, works so-so.
>
> Regards,
>
> Shlomi Fish
Cheers,
--Amos
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