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Re: [News] Linux Became Suitable to All Ages and Backgrounds

__/ [ BearItAll ] on Wednesday 21 February 2007 10:44 \__

> Roy Schestowitz wrote:
> 
>> World of open-source software continues to evolve
>> 
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>> | The learning curve has changed, Wolff said. The operating system
>> | was once usable only for skilled computer people, but now he
>> | says his mother, who is not so computer literate, can use
>> | Linux with ease.
>> `----
>> 
>>
>
http://media.www.dailynebraskan.com/media/storage/paper857/news/2007/02/20/ScienceTech/World.Of.OpenSource.Software.Continues.To.Evolve-2729244.shtml
>> http://tinyurl.com/2bgtew
>> 
> 
> I would like to see one of the easy recovery systems more prominant in the
> home client systems. Possibly with an automated setup at install time if
> there is a 2nd drive or other destination available for it. We have many
> such systems available, probably a good old rsync script still being the
> best sort, no real need for a dialog, except maybe the occasional message
> just to remind them that they is a backup going on. Yes, I have repaired a
> Win PC before only to discover that they had a Norton backup system on a
> second drive, but forgot it was there or didn't know that you could have
> used it to recover from.


Back when I was using a Windows 98 laptop, I used to travel with it
periodically in order to get backups. There were unexpected errors (e.g.
path too long for Windows filesystems) and crashes that could ruin many of
hours of work. The entire process was very time consuming. At the moment I
use rsync for remote backup and tar for local backups (second hard-drive.
Serves the PCs well. It's scripted (one-line commands) and cronned. Of
course, there are many front ends to rsync and also for crontabs, so there's
no hidrance there. Even our parents can handle this.

Now, compare a solution that's Linux based and one that's Windows-based (cost
aside):

Compact, fanless home server runs Debian Linux

,----[ Quote ]
| A small company in Sweden is shipping a low-power, ultra-quiet
| Linux file and print server based on Debian Linux. Excito's
| "Bubba" is based on a 200MHz ARM processor, and comes equipped
| with 80GB to 500GB drives plus a customizable OS featuring a
| handy torrent/http/ftp download manager.
`----

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS4105652894.html


Microsoft has a new home server as well (unveiled a couple of days ago):

Will bad backups doom Windows Home Server?

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft just announced it's working on Windows Home Server, which
| among other features, will automatically back up files on all PCs in
| the home. But if the product uses the same kind of brain-dead backup
| built into Windows Vista, this is a product that will be dead on arrival.
| 
| The backup tool built into Windows Vista may be the worst utility
| every packed into an operating system. It doesn't allow you to back
| up individual files, folders or even file types. Instead, you have to
| back up every single file and folder of broad generic types. 
| 
| For example, if you want to back up a single picture, you have to back
| up every single graphic of every graphic file type on your entire PC,
| including all the graphics that Vista itself uses. This means you can
| be forced to back up hundreds of gigabytes of files if you only want
| to back up a few family photos.
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/blogs/node/4303


> At the moment non-technical Linuxers tend to reach too quickly for the
> reinstall if something goes wrong, or switching distro for one particular
> application. We can't really expect these people to be willing to read a
> howto, so an automatic system and data backup as well as an easy restore
> route is probably the way. After the initial backup the actual rsync of a
> typical client takes just moments, could maybe be done as part of the
> shutdown or pre-hybernate as well as in idle time.


This makes you wonder about Live CDs as a permanent thing, or at least
portable applications, USB Linux, with the option of putting all data and
settings on the USB stick.


> I suppose the problem is still the users. When they ask you to fix their MS
> Win machine and you ask 'Do you have the recovery discs', 'No I didn't get
> any'. Which means they were asked to make them after install or first
> switch on and they isn't a cat in hells chance of recovering the system. So
> having them make a boot CD that can be used to recover a broken system is
> still asking too much of them.


That's where the drivers nightmare kicks in. I don't know if the trolls here
are sometimes honest, but my experience suggests that XP /does not/ get
things working out of the box. Ubuntu Linux was far better in that respect,
even old versions of SUSE. Vista is supposed to be worse than XP when it
comes to working with your existing hardware/PC, so...


> Why do MS Vendors do that? They have an OS that is designed to seperate the
> user from anything techy, i.e. treat the user as a dumb terminal, the
> vendors must know as we all do that these people will not make those
> recovery CDs. I can understand the vendors wanting the recovery CDs to be a
> snapshot of a fully setup system, but they has to be an alternative to
> that, a set that is pre-install. Without those CDs the user has nothing at
> all he/she can use to recover or reinstall a bad system. Even if they go
> out and buy the OS again, there is still the problem of all the drivers,
> plus extra code and applications that the PC maker may have supplied on the
> orriginal.


I still think that companies like Dell ought to include OpenOffice and other
third-party software. I know they do some Google software and even install
Firefox in the UK, but it's not enough.


> You know every time I look in the MS direction now, from clients at work to
> relatives and neighbours, all I see is a mess, a system prone to disaster.
> Just waiting for that one big bad weekly update or virus that brings down
> the entire system over night, then many a MS Win user will be battering the
> Internet doors, if they have another machine so they can get online, of
> Dell, HP and many others, looking for some way to reinstall their system.
> It's like that film, I've forgotten it's name, where people in a city
> suddenly realised that the food shops really weren't going to get anything
> to fill the shelves anymore, you got the truely stupid sitting on street
> corners waiting for food to drop out of the sky. Then others would raid
> neighbours houses. Just a few realised that if they were going to survive
> they had to get out of the city and plant some crops and eat rabbits until
> the bread tree produced fruit, digging lots of wells trying to find one
> that produces a nice beer. In other words, the ignorant suddenly had to
> learn that bread doesn't grow on trees and the only beer that comes from a
> well is Guiness, and there's only one of those wells.


I'm not too sure about the Guiness, but the story you tell here is why I
stopped helping people with Windows. If they want to be liberated with
GNU/Linux, then here I am. If they have malware issues or Windows won't
boot, they'll have to learn a lesson rather than delegate the chore to
somebody else. If they get help every time Windows collapses, then they will
never reach out for something better, be it a Mac (expensive new machine) or
Linux.


> I wonder what that film was called, it might even have been a black-n-white
> one.


COLA is black-n-white to me. Evrything is black, but the fonts are white. And
yet, UseNet is not a kingdom of darkness. *smile*

-- 
                ~~ Greetings

Roy S. Schestowitz      | Those who can, Open-Source
http://Schestowitz.com  |     GNU/Linux     |     PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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