[plug] LINUX IS ONLY FOR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS

[Leon Brooks]

HILL Walter wrote:
> Rick wrote:
>> LINUX IS ONLY FOR SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS, AND PEOPLE OF THAT ILK.

>> Actually, so is Windows. It's just so unwilling to check for problems
>> that users can run (walk) for months with a problem and never know it.
>> With Windows vs Linux boxes set up by professionals in the shop, as
>> almost every machine is these days, the Linux machines have far fewer
>> service calls, and many of those are from new staff who want to install
>> their favourite virus^H^H^H^H^Hgame on the office system or such like.

> This statement implies that Windoze & LINUX are equivalent products

No, it doesn't. It does imply that in the case of a system set up
_by_the_shop_ as most are these days, Linux can do Windows' job. Oddly,
this is truer of complete illiterati and of gurus, not so of many
between (ref Jack L Chalker's "Lords of the Middle Darkness").
Illiterati don't want to load viruses^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hgames, they just want
to type or calculate. They are happy that their machines no longer crash
an average of thrice daily. Gurus do want to do these things but know
how to cope. The LotMD are _already_familiar_ with Windows and a lot of
chickens-blood solutions for getting things going again when it breaks.
They find learning new processes difficult, more because they have to
UNlearn the old stuff than because the new is hard. The LotMD whom I've
helped over this kerb are delighted with their progress.

> OS/2 was also a superior product & so was the BETA video format (which
> incidentally most TV stations use). While I'm not suggesting LINUX is
> destined to the same future. It is going to require a maturation of the
> product in order to succeed in the wider market place.

Agree. And it's happening while we type. Windows has had, what, nearly a
decade's head start? And are they accelerating away? Hardly! Take, for a
pointed example, the WINE project. They are trying to hit a moving,
fuzzy target with practically no resources behind them and no legal
access to any significant source code of the target. Yet the
Windows-based Nintendo64 emulator, for example, actually runs faster and
smoother under WINE+Linux than under Windows-9X!

> People don't want
> to know about IRQs, DMA, LBA or whatever.

That's _why_ they have their OS and apps installed by the shop. BTW,
except for one machine crammed with devices (SCSI, sound-card, ATAPI CD
burner etc), in which case I would have had to know regardless of the OS
(-: just plug and play, you say? aha, aha, ahahahahahahahaha! heee, heee
heeee! Suuure! :-), I haven't had to deal with any of those TLAs during
a Linux install this year.

> They simply want to print out
> their documents or spreadsheets, whose pages they've manually number
> because they don't' realise the software can do it for them!

Played with StarOffice, WordPerfect, ApplixWare etc recently? Point,
click, done.

-- 
Exceedingly helpful error message from compiling TeX:
	(Pardon me, but I think I spotted something wrong.)
	make: *** [trap] Error 2