-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 I myself would not automatically say, "Use linux instead! It's just as good as windoze" with regards to desktop use. In many cases it IS as good, if not better, than doze. No viruses, more stable, etc, but it does come at a cost of increased complexity for the end user. They do need to know/understand more to successfully install and operate linux than they do with windoze. And gamers. Forget about it. I myself and happy to try to play games under winex but most of the time they do not work so if I want to play, I HAVE to reboot to doze. Could you honestly say that telling everyone to add even more complexity to their computer use and dual install linux on their windoze system and then go back and forth as a matter of course?
I use linux 100% exclusive as my desktop system (except for most games). I am a militant anti-M$ guy though, so I learned linux. This isn't the case with most generic users. Then there are specialized desktop users. I am a scientist in biochemistry/molecular biology. I have taken the time to learn the ins and outs of linux use and am now able (thus far) to use it exclusively in my work. My colleagues are a different matter. They all use either windoze boxes or Macs. They absolutely REQUIRE a reference manager like EndNote. They use word or, rarely, wordperfect plus EndNote to produce their research papers for submission to journals. The closest thing in linux to an app that can do the same sort of thing is Lyx/LaTex and pybliographic or sixpack. I used Lyx + pybliograhic to write my dissertation and journal submissions. I took the not inconsiderable time to learn much of the intricacies of Lyx. My colleagues don't have time or patience for this. All this said, I really dislike using Lyx. It is painful and counterintuitive. I would LOVE to be able to do this in OpenOffice. I would LOVE for the document on the screen to appear as it does when I print it out (Lyx gives no indication of what the output will actually look like). The problem is that OpenOffice on linux is not able to deal with references/citations. It does have a builtin bibliography setup but it is rudimentary and extremely limited. In fairness, there is a plan to improve on the bibliography system to make it more powerful and configurable but it isn't due to start hitting the released versions until 1.2 at the earliest. EndNote on windoze does support OpenOffice (as of EndNote 7.0, I think) so on WINDOZE, you can use OpenOffice and produce well-referenced documents with the same ease as you can with Word or Wordperfect with EndNote. In this area, linux just lacks and cannot work as a dropin replacement for most users. Most users are not going to want to learn Lyx. I can use OpenOffice for presentations and drawing, but I cannot use it for writing. For that I have to use Lyx. I cannot play most games on linux but can on windoze. Such annoyances, plus the complexity of having to administer linux is just beyond what most generic users really want. It is getting there, and Mandrake is leading the way, but it really isn't fair to say that linux CAN replace windoze for most users as their primary (at home) desktop system. It isn't even really viable yet in certain academic/scientific circles. praedor On Sunday 09 November 2003 02:20 am, James Sparenberg wrote: > Am I alone in noticing the insanity. As if SCO wasn't bad enough. > Lycoris deciding that it can rewrite the GPL. Now the CEO of RedHat > (or as I've heard of late DeadRat) is advocating that Home users stick > with Windows as Linux isn't ready for the desktop. Maybe I should send > the SOB a copy of 9.2 when it's ready to show him what RH could have > been if they didn't suffer from NIH (Not Invented Here) syndrome. > > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39117575,00.htm > > James - -- Faith is the very antithesis of reason, injudiciousness a critical component of spiritual devotion. - --Krakauer -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/rlhbb1CLurEA6xURArWHAJ983b8giPqcZtYF5e6G+6EUeDT2yACeP/p+ AlixjWOrFdqnGm7mR5XQeAw= =cOQo -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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