On Friday 15 Feb 2008 11:01:13 pm Deepa Mohan wrote: > Anyone who writes all that may be a non-techie but NOT a "dumb > user"....too much self-deprecation not allowed!!
Thanks for the compliment Deepa, but I have a rant in connection with the original article that started this thread. The writer of the article starts off with a commonly used tactic to justify saying certain things. Things that he perhaps wants to say himself, but does not want to admit, perhaps for the loss of face it may entail and claims that he is saying it on behalf of others - on the lines of "I don't mind people eating dog meat but what about others?" The author says "I am fine with Linux but what about others?". And in saying this the author is also putting himself on par with my Indian-American relatives who used to visit India on holiday in the 1980s after 4 years in the US and ask "Don't telephones work here? You have power failures here? You should see the US" Installing Linux in 2008 is no more difficult than it used to be installling Windows 98 ten years ago, and the Linux installation is a lot more capable, and a lot less useless than any Windows installation from 1993 to 2008. If you must install Windows yourself, you have to have a basic degree of knowledge of some issues and at the end of the installation you will have a nearly useless machine that will take at least 2 full more days for you to install a bank heist's worth of Windows software to make the machine both safe and functional. Linux OTOH gives you a fully functional and safe machine within hours of beginning an installation, provided you have acquired a basic degree of knowledge. But like I said - you require a basic degree of knowledge for Windows too. I have installed on this machine both Windows and Linux. But I am comfortable because the Linux machine is up and running better than my old Linux install that I abandoned just 3 days ago. My Windows instalation is still incomplete, even after I installed special drivers for the motherboard, separate third party firewall, separate third party antivirus, MS Office, Printer/scanner drivers, mobile phone drivers (not working any more). bluetooth drivers. I still have to install my favorite image viewing and image manipulation softare for Windows and I still cannot read or create a pdf file unless I download Acrobat reader or install a version of Adobe Acrobat to create pdfs. All this and more was done in the first install of Linux - completed in the first few hours after I started. shiv
