Quote:
Originally Posted by BetterRed
Its worth reading what Kovid Goyal wrote about Linux ==>> https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...8&postcount=11
Added : almost forgot, I went down the Linux path (dual boot XP and Mint) but there were too many things I couldn't get for Mint, like my file manager, basic image editor, and word processor. Yes there were alternative tools, but the learning and conversion curves were too steep for too little, or even negative gain. |
Linux is a techie toy. Kovid's commentary about fragmented distributions just scratches the surface. I have lost track of how many are out there.
I correspond with a chap on the West Coast who picked up spare change converting folks to Linux. His customers were non-technical, and a bit overwhelmed by what was necessary to use Windows safely and effectively. He wiped their machines, installed the Mint flavor of Linux, and set the machine up to be an appliance. The users did email, watched YouTube video, hung out on Facebook, and wrote the odd document in a word processor. Icons for those functions were front and center on the desktop. They were delighted. The machines did what they wanted to do, were about as easy to use as was possible, and required no effort on their end to maintain.
But Linux has never gotten a foothold on the desktop, and won't, because it's
different. Without the services of the chap I mentioned above, the average user would be lost at sea in attempting to move to it.
People get computers as tools to do jobs. They generally learn as much as they have to to be able to use the machine, and then stop. It's a reason why historically, users got a new version of Windows when they bought a new machine that came with the newer version. Only a few upgraded in place. The same is true for corporate upgrades. They are time consuming and expensive, and held off on as long as possible. Part of the reason is end user reactions on the lines of "I don't have time to do all of my work now! I certainly don't have time to learn new OS and applications software versions to be able to do it!"
And the problems are particularly acute when dealing with the Internet, because it's a moving target. Web standards are continually evolving, and browsers change4 in consequence. Sitting still is not an option, as much as folks wish it were otherwise.
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Dennis