Application inertia is just as bad as OS inertia. I'm a CAD user and can learn any system in a day or two, generate usable output in a week, and explain in detail what I hate about the system in two.

Many users have a bare-minimum understanding of their tools so just moving a toolbar gets them lost. They can produce good quality output but they're not power users, just highly trained monkeys.

Hi Carla, I'm reading Linuxtoday.com since years, I like it, and
I'm happy with your Microsoft criticism in general, as it kind of makes me feel less bad when others criticize me for being too MS-unfriendly!

I have a possible suggestion for your future writings (Perhaps you have even written about it already).
A while ago I noticed that in MacOSX and in Linux any usb mouse I would come across would just work out of the box after plugging it in. However.. the new bought usb mouse comes with a cdrom for Microsoft Windows users.
Think of all the chemical waste that is produced for all those people who think that they need to have a driver (and manual?) on a cdrom.
I think we should somehow protest against this waste of resources.

Another thing I'd like to share is a story by a friend of mine.
She bought some dongle to connect to the Internet (via UMTS I think), and in the shop she asked whether it would work with Linux. The answer was ... no.
Then at home she tried it in Ubuntu Linux, and it worked right away, and even *without* advertisement popups! (Which the MS-Windows driver had included)
That reminded me of an Acer laptop I saw where the pre-installed MS-Vista had some Acer advertisement on top of the middle of the desktop, which seemed impossible to shut down and lasted (at least) longer than half a minute.
For me that is a symbol of the exploitation of computers and the Internet, where people become part of the buying robots cattle, instead of fresh and creative human beings.

Microsoft.. when the last river has been drunk, you'll realize that money cannot be eaten.

Alright, 'nuff said ;-)

Of course, when $App does, at long last, magically appear, they still won't switch.

There will be some profoundly insightful excuse to justify it, too -- if nothing else, because "Preferences" will have moved for no good reason from the "Tools" menu to the "Edit" menu, thus rendering the entire $App entirely unintuitive and unusable by non Linux-geek "ordinary mortals".

It is an unquestionable fact that there is absolutely nothing you cannot do in Linux that you can do in Windows. Linux is faster, easier, uses less resources, and looks better.

To quote:
Nobody cares if you use Linux/FOSS. Use it, don't use, just please spare us the windy blather.

Maybe that vague verbal promise "to use Linux when $App appears on it" should be set down on paper as a written pledge? I, for one, use Linux for a competitive advantage. Whether Windows users around me use Linux or not is irrelevant. My life with Linux is more productive, having no Windows-induced viruses, BSODs, slowdowns. I can do more things, which makes me happy.

This made me smile, since we're opposites here:

>>I chose Linux as my primary computing platform
>>based on informed comparisons.

I chose Linux as my primary computing platform five years ago based on a lack of information. In fact, I installed it with all of the myths firmly in my mind (poor hardware support, difficult to use, blah-blah-blah). What drove me was XP's lack of reliability and configurability, so I figured that it was time to at least test some other options. Coming from primarily using Windows for more than a decade, I was floored by the ease of use, the configurability, and, of course, the reliability. My experience has been that Linux' hardware support leaves Windows in the dust.

Just my $0.02, FWIW.

Later.

Carla;
I tend to agree with a prior factotum218-use what works for you. I also agree with the premise that Windows, in general, sucks, but I don't think any of us are gaining anything by stating it day after day after week after month. I read at least 6 RSS feeds regarding Linux on a daily basis. It never ceases to amaze me how many of the entries are bashing Windows.

Of the 5 systems that run almost continuously in my office, 4 are Ubuntu, one is XP and the XP is because I haven't had the time, or inclination to get some WinCentric programs running under Wine.

May I suggest that we, the Linux community, devote more time and effort to promoting Linux and less time bashing Windows? I think the effort would be well spent.

Thanks for the opportunity to read your editorials. Keep up the good work.

Ken Starks Indiana truck driver

"It is an unquestionable fact that there is absolutely nothing you cannot do in Linux that you can do in Windows."

You can't purchase things from the iTunes store using a native Linux application. You can't purchase things from Steam with a native Linux application. Guess I just demolished your "unquestionable fact". Oh and please don't tell me "but you can do that in Wine" because if I have to continue using Windows programs to do things I need what's the point in switching to Linux in the first place? And no YouDon'tNeedThat(TM) posts either please.

Last time I touched a Windows box was a bit before XP came out. Sometimes I wonder: why don't folks see the problem the other way round? Think of all the things you do with your Linux box that you'll never do with your XP or Vista. Let's see...

- Setup a SOHO network (one server, twelve PCs) without paying any licenses.
- Install PCs in internet cafés without fearing worms and viruses.
- Install a recent OS on the neighbour's PIII-500 with 128 MB RAM.
- Run a public webradio on 20 $ hardware.
- Install a full-blown desktop in less than 30 minutes, without a dozen reboots.
- ...

http://www.microlinux.fr/captures.html

Same old war which brings nothing good to Linux. Blame the users for wanting to use a software, their boss asking for it, not willing to learn another one is just their rights as well. The Linux crowd just can't seems to be able to accept that. Run Windows apps natively and then maybe they might be a chance for them to switch. Calling them monkey is not going to make it.

"Independent Linux OEM vendors are good to buy from because they don't have to dance the razor's edge of trying to please both Microsoft and their actual paying customers."

If Microsoft has all this control over vendors, how come it's utterly unable to stop anyone from selling Linux servers? How come the US department of justice and the EU are completely oblivious to all of this allgeged manipulation by MS, even while they are actively monitoring the company? When will you Linux idiots stop offering lame excuses and own up your failures?

@Anonymous:

I used to work for Microsoft, so I understand your "just call them freetards" mentality. I'll help to answer your questions about the US DoJ and the EU. See, that's what happens when you have $BILLIONS to donate in campaign contributions, it's just like the oil companies. Microsoft didn't donate hardly anything before the 1990's DoJ action. But afterwards, they started donating big, and now they get a pass. As for the EU, they were really ticked at the US 'cause they hate George W. Bush, so it was easy to enforce the law against Microsoft then. But now Obama's President and the Euros love him, so MS's buyoff offers will get listened to more. See, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Also, servers don't immediately and directly result in sales of MS Office. But desktops do. Note that Dell will offer Ubuntu-preloaded boxes, but they won't offer OpenOffice.org as a (free) option on any of their Windows-preloaded desktops like they should. Instead, they offer the very sucky MS Works. Since MS Office is at least 25% of Microsoft's profit, they'll do whatever they have to to make sure OpenOffice.org (or StarOffice or anything else that natively supports ODF) is *NEVER* offered or advertised as an option like that.

Get it now? :-)

@Everyone Else Not A Microsoft Shill:

Contribute in some way to something important to you if you want it developed further. I did even when it was a free download and I had access to a T3 line (I bought Red Hat Linux back in the 6.x days). Given that we have CentOS and Fedora now, it was well worth it. I buy about every other release of Slackware since I believe in it. I buy about every other release of OpenBSD since I believe in it.

--SYG

another thing is that servers are sold between businesses. And businesses knows what they want to get the job done (at least on the server side of things).

on the desktop however, especially on the home user desktop, its more often a case of grabbing the cheapest thing thats on the shelf that makes the customer go "oh, shiny!".

also, just about anyone knows someone that knows someone that has a stack of CD-R and dvd-R with every program or game ever made, and they dont care about the BSA dropping by for a audit.

it also allows dell, hp or similar to get payed a nice sum by ahead (nero), symantec (norton) and similar to include a 30 day trail of their software on the machine out of the box.

But these people do have a point: what good is a platform if it doesn't have any decent apps? That's why I simply can't switch to Windows. The app support is pathetic. Where's Amarok for instance? Or bash? Or perl? Or grep? Or K3B? Sure, it might be possible to install these, or poor versions of these, with a lot of work and messing around, but in Linux they're usually included in a default install, or I just select them when I'm selecting all the additional software to install when I install the OS. At the very worst, I just type "sudo apt-get install " and wait a few seconds, and it's done. With Windows, it's always a giant hassle to install anything; you have to go find some weird website, hope it's not virus-infected, download an .exe, run it, go through some weird installation "wizard", etc. etc. What a pain. And even then, the integration between different apps, and between the OS, is horrendous. They're hard to find in the "start" menu (instead of being logically organized by application type, as in Linux), middle-click pasting doesn't work, I could go on for pages here.

The only thing Windows is good for is running Microsoft's own applications, which themselves are quite poor.

Regarding people who run MS applications on Linux computers using WINE.....I have read (though don't personally know if its true) that doing it opens up your computer to the same sort of attacks as a Windows computer Since off lease XP computers are dirt cheap at computer shows I run MS applications that I require on one of those. The most important thing about Linux to me was the security.