On 1/2/06, Robert Citek <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > In response to a few posts about using Linux at ByteWorks, a long- > time volunteer and trainer posted this to the ByteWorks discussion > forum ... > > On Jan 2, 2006, at 1:03 PM, (name elided) wrote: > > My two cents: > > > > I think one of the most important criteria is the drivers availible > > for the potpourri of hardware that we get in the form of donations, > > and how easy it is to find and install these drivers. I don't have > > much linux experience, but the two times I have tried to get it > > working at home, there is some network card or video card that I > > can't get working properly.
He is right - he will have to accept the fact that a good bit of hardware is unsupported. Things like winmodems and scanners are quite hard to get working in Linux. > > I don't doubt that there are linux > > lovers (the type who like to use cute spellings for Gates' products) The cute misspellings are part and parcel of a consumer revolt. End users are sick to death of paying huge sums of money for defective crap from Microsoft. And I mean crap. Windows is pop up city. The basic Microsoft OS comes with no educational software. Windows has no Gnuplot, Octave, Chemistry software or programming languages. If these Byte works computers are intended for students, then the Windowz (yeah I said it) blows. If the students want to get educational software (real educational software and not pabulum like Encarta) they are gonna pay the big buck$. MathCad student version is $200.00 (and it works like crap). Maple and Mathematica are hundreds of dollars and Matlab can cost thousands. Chemical software like Sigma Plot (Linux equivelant Grace) or gtk Chemtool costs hundreds also. There is no low cost equivalent to Scribus (a *pdf authoring package), that I know of. So yes they get a basic windows system with notepad and some cut down version of Excel. But this is competely worthless. They want to go out and buy a third party app or game, then they are going to have to determine if it can work on their hardware. > > out there who could find the driver on a forum somewhere and with a > > bunch of MAKE commands and an alphabet soup of switches get it > > working properly...but in order to get machines ready in an > > efficient manor, we'll need some serious training and support before > > the volunteers in the back area are to that point. I bet half the donated equipment does not show up with it's driver software CDROM. I suppose they have a way to locate the drivers but it seems like it too would be a hassle. Winblowz does take serious training and support. Sure it's easy to learn but there are mysterious quirks that have to be diagnosed and the inevitable slowdown of the OS with time. It just runs slower as it gets older. There are anti-virus packages to be installed and all sorts of drivers that have to be rounded up if you don't have the CD's. > > I'm all for ending our pirating ways (ARGHHHHH) but I need to be > > convinced that that Linux will be practical to use on the mix of > > equipment we get donated to us. Unless he and the others make a deliberate effort to switch they will be pirating MS products for a long time. It's better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Mexican proverb. -- Kind regards, Jonathan _______________________________________________ CWE-LUG mailing list [email protected] http://www.cwelug.org/ http://www.cwelug.org/archives/ http://www.cwelug.org/mailinglist/
