On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 09:35:29PM -0400, J wrote:
> Heh... here I am actually working all day (Still working, as a matter
> of fact) and you guys are having this nice back and forth
> conversation...
>
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 11:54, Scott <scottro@nyc.rr.com> wrote:
> > I'm going to play devil's advocate here, not to troll, though that's
> > always fun of course, but just to make what I consider an 2 important
> > points.
>
> I'm sure trolling never entered your mind ;-)
You should see what I got started on the Fedora list--they were talking
about how evil NVidia is, and I said, I don't get this logic--Fedora was
working, you upgrade Fedora, NVidia doesn't work, and it's their fault
when you changed something? After that, I have sat back and watched
them go. :)
>
> I couldn't agree more. I often bite my tongue when people come to
> this list, or Newbies or others and start using the term "Windoze" or
> "Winblows" or any of that other nonsense that they do. And I DONT use
> Windows... mostly. But it's embarrassing to think I'm associated with
> people who are so condescending to the very people they're trying to
> convince that Linux is such a good thing. It IS a good thing, and is
> perfectly capable of standing on it's own merits. We cetainly don't
> need any more OS bigots or zealots...
>
> > Windows users will tell you (rightfully), that Windows has gotten far
> > better with Blue screening and the like. Malware is often not an issue
> > for those who are intelligent users, say, at the level, hopefully, of
> > the average Linux user, interested enough in computers to follow techie
> > type stuff. (They use Ubuntu in a VM to browse questionable sites.)
> > :)
Of course, my wife, and everyone at the dance school where she teaches,
got an email from a friend, who has just won a lottery in the UK, but
got robbed on the way to the hotel and send money through Western Union
which will be paid back with high interest, and she wants to keep it
confidential from her family and other friends--I guess not anyone at
the dance school though.... so, yuppers, malware is still a problem. :)
>
> say about malware is true too though... good case in point is my wife
> and I. She hasn't had a windows system yet that hasn't become malware
> ridden and unusable.
See above.
I, on the other hand, can count the number of
> infections i've had on a windows system in the last 10 years on one
> hand. And it's not that her systems are any less secured... she just
> clicks on link after link after link, opens spam e-mail, and does all
> the things I've gotten tired of telling her not to, then becomes a bit
> ... defensive when I ask her what she did this time... (then again, I
> usually ask her that just to get under her skin)...
If it weren't for the > I would think it was me writing the email. That
merits a ROTFLMAO. On the other hand, now that she has a Mac, it's much
better, and the fact that she uses Ubuntu with her netbook makes it
better still. She doesn't go to the type of sites I do ^H^H^H^H^H, errm
independent video film sites, but she does click on just about
everything. She had me look at this email (though in fairness, she's
not a native speaker), to have me decide how much money we should send
her friend in England. :)
>
> > As for having to buy a new version of Windows even though it's only 4
> > years old, how long is an Ubuntu version supported? Fedora, which is
> > admittedly extremely aggressive in this, only supports it for 18 months.
>
> The good thing Ubuntu (and the RH distros too) have is an actually
> decent upgrade path. Upgrading used to be a nightmare and I never
> recommended upgrading to anyone, but these days, I can't remember the
> last time I did a fresh install on a system when I had the ability to
> do an in-place upgrade. In fact, the only time over the last few
> years that I have chosen re-install over upgrade in situ is an
> occasion when I wanted to use a larger hard disk and a different
> partitioning scheme.
RH still doesn't have a good upgrade path. Ubuntu, however, reflecting
its Debian roots, does. The old saw was that Debian was harder to
install (which it wasn't), but you never had to reinstall.
>
> But I've heard of very few cases of actual upgrade failures these
> days, especially when compared to the way things used to be.
Depends, I would think, on the distro--I'm dreading when CentOS releass
6.x, because at home, at least, I figure it means a reinstall, and I
really have to get one of those 1TB externals one of these days.
>
> PLUS, the upgrades you get for a Linux OS include updates for your
> applications as well as your OS and desktop system as opposed to
> Windows where you only get OS updates and everything else you have to
> dig up on your own. As far as I know, the windows world has no
> concept of repositories or tools like apt or yum that can install
> anything, from application layer to OS layer code.
As far as I know, you're right. Basically, the vendors supply the
upgrades, e.g., Ultravnc has a checkbox if you're running Vista or
Windows 7, which we're just starting to bring in.
> > There are other Linux myths, so to speak, that I feel actually hurt
> > advocacy--it's the old sales adage, promise less than you can deliver,
> > deliver more than you promise.
>
> Or in the terms of Mr. Scott, always tell them it'll take longer than
> it actually will, and you'll always seem like a miracle worker. (I
> learned so much from Jimmy Doohan)
It's true though. As I'm sure you know, in computers, everything takes
longer than expected.
> > Install Linux, all your hardware will work.
> >
> > So, they install one. Hey, my wireless isn't working.
> >
> > Oh, that's the fault of the vendor for not opensourcing their specs.
> >
> > Errm, yeah, that's nice and all, but my wireless isn't working. This
> > Linux is junk.
>
> Thankfully, this too happens less and less and Broadcom just finally
> opened up so that should take care of all the networking gear.
> slowly, we're getting there... but yes, this is indeed a problem, even
> now.
Yeah, till Atheros puts out a new version of some card.
I agree with you though, it gets better all the time. I have a page
that covers the Atheros AR242x (nee Atheros 5007), that used to be
extremely popular--now, it works out of the box in most distros, but two
years ago, it was a song and dance.
>
> > Hopefully, my point is clear. We can't promise that everything will
> > work perfectly, nor that programs will do everything your Windows/Mac
> > programs will do, etc.
>
> OTOH, Microsoft can't and won't promise that either. Not all hardware
> always works in Windows as well.
Yes, but the vendor will always supply Windows drivers, and if they
offer any sort of support, will support Windows.
To end on a positive note, though, I'll repeat:
>
> > Still, much of the original article mentiond by Roy, which I think I've
> > snipped, is quite true. It has gotten much easier to use, works better
> > with a great deal of hardware, etc. Ironically, a friend of mine
> > decided to put Ubuntu on someone's laptop, because the owner of the
> > laptop had lost the Dell driver disk, and he didn't feel like searching
> > for the drivers for her--whereas Ubuntu worked out of the box for her.
>
--
Scott Robbins
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Xander: I don't like vampires. I'm going to take a stand and say
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