On Monday 30 July 2007 19:53, Dinesh Joshi wrote: > Hi people, > > A few days ago my computer vendor came to me with some real > problems regarding Linux. Hes a small time guy who supplies > assembled PCs to individuals > > But the problem with Open Office: > > 1. With average machines, it performs slow
on a via c3 which is equivalent to a p4 cleron 1ghz with 256mb ram using sarge Oo works absolutely well. So your "average" machine must be horribly misconfigured. Common problem is assigning half the ram to video (which uses less than 8MB for most tasks). > 2. The documents it generates are not 100% compatible with > Ms.Office 3. It will never be. So dont try and stop cribbing (in the sense we know the reasons and the impossibility of decoding binary blobs which even M$ is clueless about). Having said that i find everyone can read my Oo .doc. for good measure i send pdf and sxw and .doc AFTER a request from the rciever. Which gives me an opportunity to highilight the shortcomings in .doc. > Advanced features are not completely compatible ???? > But they need to inter-operate with the rest of the world which > means a good compatibility is important. Read 1 > > Another problems that one generally faces is that Linux doesn't > always work out of the box. When it does, it works wonderfully well > but when it comes down to tweaking it to get it to work, its like > performing a brain surgery ( for a newbie ). Learning the ropes before foisting himself on customers is kinda essential for any business imnsho. No shortcuts here. > > One more issue that I perceive is that distros don't always have > good hardware compatibility. Let me explain it in more detail. > Ubuntu 6.06 worked well on my friend's machine. No issues. But > Ubuntu 7.04 refuses to work on the same machine. Some driver > compatibility issues. Read 2 > > The other issue that people in India generally face is of > bandwidth. Ubuntu installs well. It impresses them. But then it > runs up HUGE bills downloading softwares. use DVDs. Copy the iso on the disk. Disk is cheap, besides being the norm with several laptop vendors with XP pre "installed". And if you total up the costs for all the AV updates im sure Ubuntu would seem miserly. > What are your thoughts on this? How can we work with these people > to effective push Linux into homes and offices? This definitely is > one of the best ways of boosting Linux user base :) There are no simple answers and the home user desktop in the assembly segment has hughe number of issues where the only coherent biz strategy is seat of the pants. It makes sense only if the home user is also a small business and greatly values his data (lawyers, doctors). again here the gains are longterm and involves considerably short term switching resistance. These issues have been discussed over and over. The "horse n water" saying fits like a t. Unless your vendor is really trying to build and grow a business, it's just a matter of time before M$ sucks out whatever measly profits he makes from selling machines. -- Rgds JTD -- http://mm.glug-bom.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxers
