Goodsounds;320773 Wrote: > As a non-techie, I would be curious to learn what the advantages are to > changing out the operating system under these circumstances, when the > application is ready to roll as is and the user has no technical > background. Thanks in advance for the edification.
No problem. Support for XP is ending soon. Non-security updates will no longer be available without purchasing extended support (very pricey, if you aren't familiar with extended support) in less than a year (269 days to be exact as of this post). Security updates will continue for some time but will eventually run out too, leaving this machine exposed to various network exploits. You may think non-security updates are not relevant (and maybe they aren't for this user), but they would include things like any changes to the US Daylight Saving Time rules. If the rules change again, and this user needs a clock screensaver on any of his SqueezeBoxes, XP will literally not give him the time of day in less than a year. He'll still have options, don't get me wrong. He can buy a copy of Vista and I'm sure it would work fine for him until Vista support runs out and he needs to buy another upgrade. The other option he expressed interest in was Linux. With Linux, it's just as important to stay current, but the cost of doing so is much, much lower (i.e nothing). Installing Linux does not require much special technical knowledge, but just in case, it helps that this particular user seems fairly technically savvy (he knows his system specs, even the power draw of the machine) and that he specifically said he has a friend who's a Linux expert. So the choice was between: 1) A more-or-less already obsolete operating system whose only advantage is that it's on the machine right now and 2) A current operating system that he will have no problem getting working and costs nothing I can't see why anyone would recommend anything except #2. -- CatBus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CatBus's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7461 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=49951 _______________________________________________ unix mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/unix
