[ale] GO Windows!!! ;-)

[Asher Vilensky]

Continue....

My personal "fun" aside, as much as I like Linux, I feel that it's not yet
ready for "the rest of us".  Don't get me wrong:  first of all, I'm working
on Linux myself.  It pays the bills.  But there's a diff between RHELor
SLES  on servers and running Ubuntu-like distros on laptops.  It's the later
one I'm claiming "is not there yet".  If you have to google a solution (from
another computer, since the one you just installed cannot connect) to
manually solve it (in the best case) or just live with it (worst case) when
it comes to wireless and audio/video and printing, this is a tough selling
point.

The problem is not you and I.  The problem is that you can't "sell" Linux
(pick any flavor and version) to the mass until these things work out of the
box.  I want to convert those around me - basically so I don't have to keep
install virus protection etc.  But I'm hesitant in doing so.  I don't want
to either have to educate people too much or stand there embarrassed when
things don't work.   I hate Windows like the rest of this group, but I also
recognize that Linux is not a viable substitute for most users.  Not yet.  I
would recommend Mac (to somebody like my in-laws) before I suggest Linux.

My 2 cents.


-- Asher


On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:40 AM, Asher Vilensky <ashervilensky at gmail.com>wrote:

> In the past I installed Mint/Ubuntu 9.04 (I believe) on a Dell laptop, but
> had trouble with the Broadcom wireless card.  Nothing I googled helped.  The
> only advice was to wait for 10.04.
> Well, yesterday I installed a MiniInspiron with Remix 10.04.  Again, the
> b-com did not work out of the box.  They lied.  However, a simple and quick
> apt-get and then install <whatever> from a terminal window fixed the
> problem.  Nice!!!
>
> (What __wasn't__ nice was that in order to install Remix in the first
> place, I had to create an live-USB from ISO drive.  After struggling with
> the creation on both Ubuntu (8.04) and Mac, I raised a white flag and went
> to Windows.  Yes, I know.  It was too easy creating it on Windows.  Maybe
> had I used a later version of Ubuntu it would have been easier.  Oh well.  I
> guess there are a few things Windows is good for...sigh)
>
> Learned a good lesson on both assignments.
>
> -- Asher
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.ale.org/pipermail/ale/attachments/20100621/fc871b6a/attachment.html