[sclug] Post: See you later Linux

[alan c]

mskadu at gmail.com wrote:
> Neil,
> 
>> Linux probably has to be better and easier to use than Windows in order
>> to attract people away from something ubiquitous that they are familiar
>> with, and it is a little short of that just now. But it is getting there.
>>
> 
> My point exactly. Thanks.

If you are looking to justify any discomfort you have personally found 
with your experience with gnu/linux, please note that the experience 
you suggest is so different from my own experience that I wonder what 
you are doing.

Every time I have used windows  - and I do try hard to avoid it - I 
get trouble. There is hardly a single area of normal use that I can 
say I have not had trouble. What is worse, that when there were 
intermissions between troubles, I simply could not trust what was 
going on!

On the other hand I have used linux for several years now on many 
machines, on machines of elderly friends, and as administrator, at a 
local charity for adults with learning difficulty, and this all is 
trustworthy and smooth running with no unscheduled worries.

You are expecting to be the administrator of your machine/s, as I am 
with mine, and naturally I had to find out where to obtain information 
from - mostly a no brainer with ubuntu - with their forums -  but 
whenever I had to install windows either on an alien machine or even 
one it came on, using its own original install CD, it gave more 
trouble that linux does! Included in trouble the need to get drivers 
of various hardware items and also applications. With linux - 
particularly ubuntu this is very straightforward compared to Windows.

As a non administrator, normal user, I would say with even more 
emphasis that such as ubuntu is easier and more stable and reliable 
than windows.

I set up and ran for three years as coordinator, with a number of 
other volunteers, the Age Concern Berkshire Computer Centre (for their 
public clients sessions). I subsequently resigned  because I could 
clearly see that introducing vulnerable novices to using windows was a 
misguided way of using  my time in life.
-- 
alan cocks
Kubuntu user#10391
Linux user #360648