__/ [rex.ballard@xxxxxxxxx] on Monday 06 February 2006 22:47 \__
> First guess is that if Ralph wants to repartition his hard drive, he's
> probably about as interested in computers as his father was in cars.
> You don't have to be a technogeek to like Linux. Carpenters, truckers,
> lawyers, nurses, construction workers, even janitors, are looking at
> Linux these days.
...Yet not as often as those who are more technically-inclined, as one would
expect.
> Remember the days when a PC was an oddity and a "geek toy"? It wasn't
> that long ago.
>
> Even with MS-DOS, the PC was more like an overpriced typewriter to most
> folks.
>
> The Apple Mac came along and made computers everybody could use.
>
> Windows came along and made PCs much easier to use, at a price people
> could afford. They didn't even seem to mind that the PC crashed every
> 2-3 hours, they just backed up the documents they were working on as
> frequently as possible.
This did not cover the issue of the O/S failing to load. DOS utilities were
useful under such circumstances.
> Modern releases of Desktop Linux, such as Linspire, Novell SUSE, and
> Red Hat Enterprise Workstation - have lots of really great stuff, at a
> price that people can afford, and it's available now, today.
If only Linux had budgets for marketing. Linux is often 'remembered' rather
than seen. State-of-the-art Linux desktop needs to be shown (preferably
live) to more prospective users.
> Keep in mind that almost any man under the age of 30 not only knows
> what Linux is, but has probably tried it at least once. When Windows
> 95 came out, those who didn't have the gigabucks for hardware upgrades
> tried Linux. Many companies were literally putting fully functional
> computers on the sidewalk for anyone who wanted them, and since they
> wouldn't run Windows 95, they were perfect for Linux. The same thing
> happened when Windows NT 4.0 was released. Windows 98 was a pretty
> uneventful period for Linux, it was one release where Microsoft
> executed well. Windows ME on the other hand - many decided to keep
> their Windows 98 machine and upgrade the ME machine to Linux.
I very much agree with that point. My last Windows computer (a Compaq
Presario) was running Windows 98. I was still using it in recent years and
it offered just about as much functionality as Windows XP (released in late
2001, minus the need for patching. Apparently, Vista will not offer anything
that is already inherent in Windows XP (a gross understatement). In fact, it
will require more (hardware-wise) and security-wise, the O/S will remain in
the same morbid state. Service Pack III is due around 2007.
> If you were on a limited budget, for example, a college student, high
> school student, or grade-school student, during any of these releases,
> you might have been told about Linux.
>
> If a college student was 23 years old when Windows 95 came out, he
> would be 28 today.
I'm assuming the bad maths is intentional, in which case it's a nice parable.
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "The only source is Open Source"
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
5:55am up 21 days 1:11, 11 users, load average: 0.45, 0.91, 0.76
http://iuron.com - next generation of search paradigms
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