[SC.LUG] RE: SC Digest, Vol 107, Issue 2: Switch 2 Linux

[Russ Phillips]

On 18/01/06, Michael A Orton <michael_orton at tiscali.co.uk> wrote:
> Convincing people to switch to Linux:
> I got these two excellent installation guides today. They both show screen
> shots on installations.

In the blog post referenced [1], Steven Warren says that people have
told him that it's easier to install Ubuntu than Windows XP, and that
their granny could install Ubuntu. I'm a big fan of Ubuntu, and Jen &
I both run it on our desktops, and we use XUbuntu on the laptop.
However, I don't think the average user would find it easy to install,
simply because the text installer would frighten a lot of people. You
could argue that it's easier for a power user, because it asks all the
questions at the start, then gets on with it. Windows, on the other
hand, keeps asking questions all the way through.

One thing that did irritate me was this statement:
"I will even go out on a limb and say that Windows Vista will be
easier to install than any Linux distribution available today."
It seems to be quite common to claim that the *next* version of
Windows will be better than the *current* versions of Linux, and I
think it's all too easy for Linux people to be drawn into the
comparison. Back when the next version of Windows was called Longhorn,
I was reading articles about how it would have a 3D GUI and WinFS, and
how they were so much better than what the open source community had.
Funnily enough, both have now been dropped from Vista, but the open
source community has Project Looking Glass [2]. Back then, we couldn't
compete, but only because we were competing with promises, not actual
products.

Rant over.

Russ

[1] http://tinyurl.com/bxr6v
[2] http://www.sun.com/software/looking_glass/