Heh... here I am actually working all day (Still working, as a matter
of fact) and you guys are having this nice back and forth
conversation...
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 11:54, Scott <scot...@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> I'm going to play devil's advocate here, not to troll, though that's
> always fun of course, but just to make what I consider an 2 important
> points.
I'm sure trolling never entered your mind ;-)
> One, I think that Linux users putting down Windows or Apple is
> reminiscent of a little dog barking at a big dog. I just don't see it
> serving a purpose anymore--the more restrained--if that's the proper
> word, we are, the better, especially, ironically, from an advocacy
> standpoint--telling someone, "What you use is BAD," implies they're
> foolish, and can quickly close their mind.
I couldn't agree more. I often bite my tongue when people come to
this list, or Newbies or others and start using the term "Windoze" or
"Winblows" or any of that other nonsense that they do. And I DONT use
Windows... mostly. But it's embarrassing to think I'm associated with
people who are so condescending to the very people they're trying to
convince that Linux is such a good thing. It IS a good thing, and is
perfectly capable of standing on it's own merits. We cetainly don't
need any more OS bigots or zealots...
> Windows users will tell you (rightfully), that Windows has gotten far
> better with Blue screening and the like. Malware is often not an issue
> for those who are intelligent users, say, at the level, hopefully, of
> the average Linux user, interested enough in computers to follow techie
> type stuff. (They use Ubuntu in a VM to browse questionable sites.)
> :)
Heh... well, Windows 7 at least... I have yet to see a blue screen on
my Win7 64bit system. Of course, I don't run it 24/7 either, so the
chances that I'll see one are reduced, but even so, I've not seen one
on this system or my other laptop that has Win7 64bit. Cant say that
the same was true for the few Vista systems I played with. What you
say about malware is true too though... good case in point is my wife
and I. She hasn't had a windows system yet that hasn't become malware
ridden and unusable. I, on the other hand, can count the number of
infections i've had on a windows system in the last 10 years on one
hand. And it's not that her systems are any less secured... she just
clicks on link after link after link, opens spam e-mail, and does all
the things I've gotten tired of telling her not to, then becomes a bit
... defensive when I ask her what she did this time... (then again, I
usually ask her that just to get under her skin)...
> As for having to buy a new version of Windows even though it's only 4
> years old, how long is an Ubuntu version supported? Fedora, which is
> admittedly extremely aggressive in this, only supports it for 18 months.
There's a big difference there though... the typical lifecycle would
look something like this for Linux:
Original Install -> update -> update -> update -> End of Life -> End
of Support -> free upgrade to a new version -> cycle repeats
For Windows:
Original Install -> Windows updates -> Windows Updates -EOL -> EOS ->
No more updates, buy an upgrade or buy a new computer (more likely as
the newer version of Windows most likely will not work on your 4-8
year old hardware.
The good thing Ubuntu (and the RH distros too) have is an actually
decent upgrade path. Upgrading used to be a nightmare and I never
recommended upgrading to anyone, but these days, I can't remember the
last time I did a fresh install on a system when I had the ability to
do an in-place upgrade. In fact, the only time over the last few
years that I have chosen re-install over upgrade in situ is an
occasion when I wanted to use a larger hard disk and a different
partitioning scheme.
That's not to say that there are cases where upgrades go awry... in
fact, my 10.04.1 to 10.10 Beta upgrade failed halfway through and
required a fair bit of hackery to get back on track later on (In my
case, the failure was my own fault because I suspended my laptop in
the middle so I could get to the airport and fly back from Boston).
But I've heard of very few cases of actual upgrade failures these
days, especially when compared to the way things used to be.
Another thing I've noticed on this front is that windows upgrades
often end up adding to the system with layer after layer of security
patching where Linux upgrades just upgrade the package in place and
often don't use up additional disk space.
PLUS, the upgrades you get for a Linux OS include updates for your
applications as well as your OS and desktop system as opposed to
Windows where you only get OS updates and everything else you have to
dig up on your own. As far as I know, the windows world has no
concept of repositories or tools like apt or yum that can install
anything, from application layer to OS layer code.
> There are other Linux myths, so to speak, that I feel actually hurt
> advocacy--it's the old sales adage, promise less than you can deliver,
> deliver more than you promise.
Or in the terms of Mr. Scott, always tell them it'll take longer than
it actually will, and you'll always seem like a miracle worker. (I
learned so much from Jimmy Doohan)
> Install Linux, all your hardware will work.
>
> So, they install one. Hey, my wireless isn't working.
>
> Oh, that's the fault of the vendor for not opensourcing their specs.
>
> Errm, yeah, that's nice and all, but my wireless isn't working. This
> Linux is junk.
Thankfully, this too happens less and less and Broadcom just finally
opened up so that should take care of all the networking gear.
slowly, we're getting there... but yes, this is indeed a problem, even
now.
> Hopefully, my point is clear. We can't promise that everything will
> work perfectly, nor that programs will do everything your Windows/Mac
> programs will do, etc.
OTOH, Microsoft can't and won't promise that either. Not all hardware
always works in Windows as well.
> Still, much of the original article mentiond by Roy, which I think I've
> snipped, is quite true. It has gotten much easier to use, works better
> with a great deal of hardware, etc. Ironically, a friend of mine
> decided to put Ubuntu on someone's laptop, because the owner of the
> laptop had lost the Dell driver disk, and he didn't feel like searching
> for the drivers for her--whereas Ubuntu worked out of the box for her.
Indeed... I liked that article.
Now back to catching up on my DVR...
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