[ale] Linux the $400 Operating System

[James P. Kinney III]

Or even more appropriate:

A friend gives you a car. You don't know how to drive it and promptly
run into a tree. It costs you $400 to fix the damage. Should you be mad
at the friend for giving you the car, mad at the mechanic who fixed it
for, or mad at driving it with out knowing enough about the controls, or
just bummed about the $400 no longer in the wallet.

Over the years, I would estimate that I have spent (based on my earning
rate at the time) at least $250,000 of my time "doing things" on my
linux box(es). I consider the time spent a valuable investment.  I have
purchased "official" distributions from all of the top 6 at least once.

I have even , as root, in /, run "rm -rf *", and watched in complete
shock and horror as my months of work getting X timings perfect for my
card/monitor combo vanished with a bozo keystroke (thought I was in
/tmp)(X was HARD in 1994!).

I guess everyone is different.

On Wed, 2002-08-21 at 11:51, phrostie wrote:
> interesting, if a friend gives you a car, and you spend $400 dolars paying
> someone else to clean it up, do you accuse the friend of taking your money?
> 
> 
> --- "ChangingLINKS.com" <x3 at ChangingLINKS.com> wrote:
> > For over a half decade, a new Unix variant offers users more speed, stability
> > 
> > and security than MicroSoft Windows. The variant's name is Linux. Currently 
> > Linux has grown into an operating system that comes with thousands of free 
> > programs and an install (with all it's upgrades) can use 6-8 times more space
> > 
> > than Windows 98.
> > 
> > Most people believe that since it's beginning's, Linux has been "free," at 
> > least insofar as being able to download and use the operating system on a 
> > daily basis. However, what many users are finding, is that there are costs 
> > that can be incurred after committing to the operating system.
> > 
> > "In the beginning, I tried to fully install Linux - and just couldn't. I
> > ended 
> > up paying a company called "Onyx" $90 to install it for me - and they refused
> > 
> > to help with data encryption or playing DVDs," a spokesman from 
> > ChangingLINKS.com. He went on to say, "As time went on, I shelled out other 
> > varying amounts of cash to "Linux gurus" in an effort to learn how to use the
> > 
> > operating system better."
> > 
> > In all fairness, he did mention that he got lots of help from the Linux 
> > community - including encoding a video tape for playback on a CD which would 
> > have cost a couple hundred dollars to create using a graphics company. Still 
> > on the downside, is the countless hours spent trying to understand various 
> > programs and features. "You come across some topics, like security - and it 
> > seems like there is only one or two guys that can help. In windows encrypting
> > 
> > a filesystem 'on the fly' and using it daily is easy. My data is still 
> > unencrypted to this day," the spokesman said.
> > 
> > But what of the price tag that entitles this article? It is spent on data 
> > loss. After calling around to various data recovery companies, the minimum 
> > estimate for recovering data for Linux was $400. The price includes a 
> > standard diagnostic charge. In Windows, data recovery is relatively easy. 
> > There are programs like "Recover" and "Winhex" that will undelete your data 
> > with a few simple clicks. Don't make the same mistake with Linux though- it 
> > could cost you hundreds, especially if you are using the "ext3" filesystem.
> > 
> > "In my 12 years of using Windows, I have never lost a 100,000 byte file - and
> > 
> > my first Windows box was was installed (and reinstalled) on a computer with a
> > 
> > defective hard drive. For years, each time I booted the compter, some of the 
> > hard drive medium would be permanently damaged and unusable. But, I still 
> > never lost mor than a screenfull of data." 
> > 
> > The spokesman was using Worker on Linux, and accidentally deleted an
> > directory 
> > tree. Next, he spent day and night trying to learn how to undelete the data 
> > from the ext3 partition, and is currently looking a Windows solutions to 
> > recover the data. "I'm just hoping that Windows can bail me out, because I 
> > have not been able to understand the results from the Linux based tools. For 
> > data recovery and encryption, Windows is simply the way to go."
> > 
> > So before downloading your next distro or using programs that automate 
> > deletion of files on Linux, at least be careful. The mantra that you will 
> > hear from the Linux community is "restore from your backup" but that is 
> > useless when you do 8 hours of work - and your back up was not sceduled until
> > 
> > 12 hours have elapsed.
> > 
> > All in all, the real Losers (of data) are the Lusers that end up having to 
> > spend $400 to get their data back. In some cases the only "freedom" about 
> > Linux provides your computer is "freedom from important data."
> > 
> > staff writer
> > -- 
> > Wishing you Happiness, Joy and Laughter,
> > Drew
> > http://www.ChangingLINKS.com
> > 
> > ---
> > This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
> > See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be
> > sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
> > 
> 
> 
> =====
> phrostie
> Oh I have slipped the surly bonds of DOS
> and danced the skies on Linux silvered wings.
> http://pfrostie.freeservers.com/cad-tastrafy/
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/cad-linux
> 
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs
> http://www.hotjobs.com
> 
> ---
> This message has been sent through the ALE general discussion list.
> See http://www.ale.org/mailing-lists.shtml for more info. Problems should be 
> sent to listmaster at ale dot org.
-- 
James P. Kinney III   \Changing the mobile computing world/
President and CEO      \          one Linux user         /
Local Net Solutions,LLC \           at a time.          /
770-493-8244             \.___________________________./

GPG ID: 829C6CA7 James P. Kinney III (M.S. Physics)
<jkinney at localnetsolutions.com>
Fingerprint = 3C9E 6366 54FC A3FE BA4D 0659 6190 ADC3 829C 6CA7 



 This is a digitally signed message part