[clug] A most interesting read, most interesting

[Michael Cohen]

On Tue, Dec 26, 2006 at 12:26:36PM +1100, Chris Smart wrote:
> "I'd like to say that I knew this would happen, that it's all part of the
> plan for world domination. But honestly this has all taken me a bit by
> surprise."
> 
> "Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely
> unintentional side effect."

I never understood this whole world domination thing. What do linux users get
when everyone starts using linux? In my experience most windows users are so
computer illiterate that they dont really understand what their computer is
doing anyway. The funny thing is that most of them curse windows when it
crashes and really dont understand how to fix it when it breaks (very
frequently) but at the same time they have some kind of religious distrust
towards linux. Even if linux worked without a hitch and ran everything they
wanted easily from a pretty gui they would not get over the "linux is harder to
use than windows" stigma. It is completely unfounded in reality but is common
among computer illiterates.

The fact that it takes around 4 hours to install Vista, and is certainly not
doable by the average joe (windows installation is pretty complex actually).
While the average linux install takes about 20 min and requires minimal effort
(and comes with everything) doesnt seem to dawn on users. In fact windows
installation is so far beyond the capabilities of the average user that most
oems provide images of pre-installed windows which people can use to wipe their
hard disk every 6 months and start again when windows gets out of hand.

At the end of the day, I personally dont get anything if elderly people use
linux over MS. I dont really care - my simple rule is that I will never
personally support a windows machine, its just too hard for me and my time is
not well spent fighting with the OS. Linux for me is a tool to do the job - I
am much more productive using linux, to the point that using windows is wasting
my time. If people want to come see the light - I am happy to help them adopt
linux, but I dont see the point of forcing linux onto people who are not really
interested anyway. If they are interested in getting multimedia working, they
will download the required software and install it (which is as simple as
changing the repositories).

At the end of the day I am a great believer in helping those who are willing to
help themselves.

Another way to look at it is that millions of computer illiterate microsoft
users benefit me by bringing the cost of mass produced high end hardware down.
I know that my Dual core 3GHz P4 absolutely flies running linux, and I was able
to buy it for a couple hundred dollars thanks to millions of windoze users
substidizing it for me because they need it to run vista properly - so thanks
windoze users, I really appreciate it.

Michael.