On Friday 25 January 2008 09:33, Simon Roberts wrote: > > . Meanwhile, Linux seems to me to be a > good choice for companies where one install effort can be rolled out to > hundreds of users, but less viable for intermediate home users who want > to do interesting and different things, but aren't able to help > themselves. The really basic users, who browse, send email, write the > odd document, and look at jpeg images from their cameras have no > problem.
Simon: Thanks for an excellent rant. I couldn't agree with you more. I share your view of Gates & Co and your frustration with the steep learning curve needed to transition from M$ to Linux for those intermediate users which, unfortunately, is where most home users are. My mom is almost 84 and she is running opensuse 10.2. All her apps are web based: email and web browsing. She could be running a diskless box with a live cd for all she cares. She is very computer illiterate but she manages to read her bank account online and can tell which renters have paid on time and she can read her mail. Anything else stretches her tired old brain too far. She is my only success story. My daughter and family had an opensuse system but the slope-headed son-in-law had to have Windows for his games. Their hardware is too limited to run VirtualBox and wine doesn't run the games so they have WinXP and a crapper full of trojans, etc which I won't fix. Tit for tat. Sorta ditto for my other kid who is involved in some serious online realtime high performance gaming which would be a major pain in the ass to get working with Linux, if it were at all possible. So, I use Linux primarily, have VirtualBox to use those Windows apps that I need for business and, on those rare occasions where a VB session won't work right, I have a bootable XP drive on the bus that I can bring up. I have had more success with moving people to OpenOffice from M$. I believe that once they learn firsthand that they can wean away from Gates, they are more apt to look at an alternative to Windows. But I also draw to inside straights. Fred -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
