Author: José Carlos
Date: 06:53:50 08/11/04
Go up one level in this thread
On August 10, 2004 at 23:53:09, Christophe Theron wrote: >On August 10, 2004 at 16:39:29, Peter Berger wrote: > >>On August 10, 2004 at 01:17:55, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>On August 09, 2004 at 23:45:28, Eugene Nalimov wrote: >>> >>>>Is it really necessary to insult people who have opinion different from yours? >>>> >>>>Thanks, >>>>Eugene >>> >>> >>> >>>Where is your sense of humour, Eugene? >>> >>>From time to time the 1% of Linux users I represent have a good laugh at the 95% >>>Windows users you represent. >>> >>>Is this 1% hurting you as much as it hurts Gates and Ballmer? ;-) >>> >>>I understand why THEY are worried. But you? >>> >>> >>> >>> Christophe >> >>I guess if we really knew what was going on in the basements of most Linux >>users, it would be the Windows users who would have the final laugh. >> >>It is not the windows-bashing that can become annoying, it is the propaganda and >>the misleading information. >> >>My Windows PCs don't crash - never, and I have lots of them (only Fritz will at >>times). They were also pretty easy to install and setup. I admit that I am >>probably more knowledgeable than average PC users when it is about security and >>the like, but where is the fair comparison to the average Joe Linux user who >>somehow managed to install he OS, will of course be logged on as root, with no >>password, all network services running unpatched? Maybe he doesn't exist - OK, >>but then this only means that there just *is* no average Joe linux user. > > > >The average user will not install and configure the OS himself anyway. > >Let the average user do it with a Windows system and he ends up eaten alive by >viruses before the OS is fully installed and patched (it's not a joke, it's the >real, sad experience of using Windows today). > >Let the average user install a Linux system and he will probably manage to do >it, but several things will not work as they should (maybe the video driver will >not be optimized of the sound driver will not be installed). > >In both cases you need someone with some technical knowledge of the system. Not >necessarily an expert, just someone familiar with some common issues. > >There are many people out there making a living from that: installing, >configuring and maintaining Windows systems. If Windows was so easy to install >and manage, these people would have to find another job. > > > > >>Whenever I talk with a happy Linux user with a mission I ask him a few basic >>questions on how he does this and that with his PC (concentrating on a few >>issues I had to face when I tried it myself). Once you show that you are not a >>complete ignoramus you will hear different stories - about the two weeks spent >>to get the video card running - the great features of the word processor ( once >>you studied the whole manual for a few weeks) etc. > > > >I think you are mainly talking about things of the past here. > >The real problem today is the lack of drivers for recent hardware in Linux. Most >hardware is fully supported, but the most recent devices sometimes are not >immediately supported. > >So if you have a Linux box you must be very careful when you purchase hardware. >That's a pain, I admit it. > >Now whose fault is it? Does it mean that Linux is inferior as an Operating >System? > > > > >>My favourite still is the one user who wanted to convince me that setting up >>Linux was way easier than Windows, though he unfortunately never got the sound >>to work ( mentioned much later in discussion ;) ) . >> >>While I used to do most of my work on Unix machines including years of system >>administration, and could probably go on for some time on things that are >>superior about it, I never felt fully prepared to deal with all this hazzle at >>home in my spare time, other than for the occasional experiment. >> >>Linux has obviously improved in recent years when it is about setup, and I toy >>with the idea to give it another try, but as long as the Linux users sound like >>missionaries, it is tough to trust them too much when it is about improvements >>made. I am still under the impression that everyone who really managed to reach >>a really workable system with Linux, is soo proud of himself and his >>intelligence, that he has to tell and pray to all the world :) > > > >What happened for me is that I have tried Linux three times in the past. The two >first attempts were disasters and I concluded that the system was not ready for >serious use. Yes, Linux was shit AT THAT TIME. > >My third attempt turned out to be completely different: I downloaded a 200Mb >distro (over a regular phone line thru a 56K modem!) and it worked like a charm. >I could really see all the work that had been done and that it had reached an >almost mature level (that was in mid-2002). > >In January 2003 I switched to Linux on my main computer (RedHat 8 at the time), >but considered it as an experiment (I had Windows ME in the other partition). Christophe, I'm no fan of Windows or Linux. I try to be objective. By that time you mention, or some months before I think, I was sick of win98 we were using in my company back then. I installed 3 computers at my table, one with winME, one with win2k and one with Red Hat. I tried to get them three doing the things my users needed everyday. WinMe crashed like a piece of shit, Red Hat was stable, but din't support all I needed. Win2k was surprisingly stable and gave me all the tools I needed. Time has changed and linux is much more powerful by now, but NT derived kernels are totally stable. This is a fact even Linux fans must admit. Security is a different issue. Win2k (and XP) can be as safe as Linux, though it demands some more work. I've been faced to security problems in my job and I know win2k _can_ be configured to be rock solid. If you compare security effort in win2k vs configuration effort in linux, I think they're more or less even. Linux is free, that's great. Windows is user friendly, that's also important, specially in a company with a bunch of users with no computer science knowledge at all. Just my 2 cents. José C. >It turned out I could do everything -or almost- in Linux. When there was >something I could not do with Linux, I managed to find alternatives (booting an >outdated version of Windows in another partition, or running this outdated >version of Windows inside Linux with an emulator like Win4lin or VMware). > >So I never switched to XP. I switched to Linux instead, and I am glad I did. > >Of course it's not perfect every day. But I have spent 15 years dealing with >problems caused by Windows and the fact that Microsoft has always placed market >lock-in over respect for their customers. Compared to that, the few problems I >have experienced with Linux are NOTHING. > > > > Christophe > > > > >> >>Sorry for the OT, could't resist for unknown reasons. >>Peter
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