I disagree somewhat. Whenever I have connected new hardware to my Macs,
the drivers were already there and I didn't need to find and install
them as I often have needed to to on Windows. I realize this won't
always be the case but it is nice when things work this way.
The difficulties with Linux can vary considerably depending on the
distribution used and it takes some degree of experience to solve these
difficulties when they are encountered but at least you can often see
where things are failing, something which is often hidden from Windows
users.
I retired when Windows was at the 3.1 stage and Linux was pre-1.0, so my
computing these days is more of a hobby than actual work, but it's a
good way to keep the brain cells engaged. I still haven't fully
transitioned from the command line do a lot using the Terminal app.
Bob, N7XY
On 7/10/16 1:02 AM, Jim Brown wrote:
On Sat,7/9/2016 9:40 PM, Ken K6MR wrote:
“I think the amateur radio community would benefit tremendously from
transitioning to *n*x at some point in the future.”
Until the Linux folks make the installation of new hardware as easy
as it is on Windows I don’t think it will ever happen.
I'm VERY strongly in Ken's camp on this one. I started with computers
in the early '80s with a measurement system running in CP/M, which I
took the time to learn. I also took the time to learn DOS, and to do
relatively simple programming in SBASIC and BASIC. A few years down
the road, I transitioned to Windoze, because that's where the
engineering applications I needed ran. Later, I tried to make OS/2
work for me, but I spent more time getting those specialty Windoze
apps to run in OS/2 than I did productive, billable work.
That's how I feel about the desire to make ham stuff run in *nix. I'm
an engineer, a ham, a technical writer. I do NOT want to spend my time
doing IT. I have paid those dues, and lost on the deal big time. OSs
are not religious to me, they are practical for what I want to do on a
computer.
A year or two ago, I went through the exercise of getting Linux and
VBox to work on a couple of machines. It was a struggle, and I don't
want to get into the reasons. I did that to try to run an ancient
version Quattro Pro that happens to do engineering graphs better than
anything I can find in current software -- it's what I use for all my
published graphs. I got VBox running, but I've failed at installing a
version of Windoze old enough to let me load QPW from floppies!
*nix may be wonderful if you're a programmer, but I'm not. :) As Ken
has observed, there's way too much IT overhead involved.
73, Jim K9YC
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