____/ Richard Rasker on Monday 19 November 2007 11:55 : \____
>
> Some time ago, one of my users asked me if I could set up a Windows
> partition, because their 14-y/o son wanted to play the same games he saw at
> his friends' house.
> I told him that I could stick in an extra HD for Windows, but that I
> wouldn't have anything to do with Windows itself. So he got a friendly
> neighbour to install a copy of XP, after which I only had to reinstall the
> boot loader in order to restore access to the Linux partitions.
>
> And after two months, I was called in again to restore the boot loader once
> again. XP had crapped out, and according to the friendly neighbour,
> reinstalling it was the only option left. And last week, they called once
> more, with more Windows trouble.
>
> Turned out that in the six months with Windows, a full week of work or so
> and several hundreds of dollars had been spent on installing Windows and
> games, and on attempts to keep it running -- and still they failed.
>
> Of course, the kid and his friends were blamed for this: they shouldn't send
> each other "jokes" through MSN, they shouldn't just install anything and
> everything they come across, the shouldn't disable antivirus and the likes,
> even if it's recommended in the game's manual, they should always be wary
> about what they click on, they shouldn't do this and should do that ...
>
> One "problem" here is that this kid was used to Linux -- which perhaps took
> an hour or so per year to keep running smoothly, without any need for
> antivirus and other crapware protection measures, and which offered an
> equally simple as safe way to install software from trusted sources. He
> could do whatever he wanted, without having to worry about anything.
>
> His parents told him that if he wanted to continue running Windows for his
> games, he was on his own. And yes, he actually reinstalled everything from
> scratch once again (including the Linux boot loader, for which I gave him a
> copy of the Mandriva DVD plus a simple HOWTO) -- but I heard he asked a
> game console for Christmas, so that he wouldn't need Windows any more to
> play his favourite games :-)
>
> Richard Rasker
Letting Linux children meet the world of Windows is akin to letting an animal
that grew up in a cage (or spoiled in a home) be out in the wild.
--
~~ Best of wishes
Steve Ballmer is even monkier than his moniker suggests
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