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Funny (if not too much sad)

Started by Eros Olmi, November 02, 2007, 03:13:07 PM

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Eros Olmi

thinBasic Script Interpreter - www.thinbasic.com | www.thinbasic.com/community
Win7Pro 64bit - 8GB Ram - Intel i7 M620 2.67GHz - NVIDIA Quadro FX1800M 1GB

Kent Sarikaya

Linux's hope to become dominant on the desktop is largely based on it being adopted on desktops in emerging markets which have huge populations who are at the moment OS neutral. So this story is a scary trend and shows it has legs if Microsoft is creating fighting trenches in those areas. It does show the importance of those markets for the future. Linux has a nice place in servers at the moment, getting to the desktop is a lot harder.

Donald Darden

If you want the broader market, you have to make it simpler than it is.  Linux still has a geek flavor to it.  It uses cryptic names for things, it treats everything as a file (which makes some difficulties in handling devices), and it forces you to revert to a Terminal interface to find a workaround when something is not on the menu.

Look at the terminal interface as being retarded.  It goes back to the generic tty and VT100 terminal concepts.  You have to learn bash commands and master an arcane syntax to make use of it.  It is not user friendly.

Between help, info, and man, you have three ways to try and identify and learn how to use specific commands.  But that is just to learn the calling convensions.  How about when and how to use the commands?  That is what examples are suppose to show you.  But the assumption is that you already know that, or are bright enough to figure it out on your own.

I don't know that Microsoft stole the show as the link infers.  Maybe they did not have to.  Someone with some Windows experience in the government could have gotten his hands on the Linux distribution and decided that this is too hard, and convinced the government to switch over.  That's the problem with Linux -- while many things are easier than ever, it is not intuitive in nature, and the hand holding stops as soon as youj get it loaded.

Petr Schreiber

Hi,

I am not confused by fact those guys are switching to Windows,
I am 100% sure they just have seen: Steve Ballmers advertisement on Windows.
Could you resist such a offer :D ?


Petr
AMD Sempron 3400+ | 1GB RAM @ 533MHz | GeForce 6200 / GeForce 9500GT | 32bit Windows XP SP3

psch.thinbasic.com

Kent Sarikaya

Thanks Petr, great video. When I first saw a Steve Ballmer video, it was the one labeled Steve Ballmer going crazy, and since I didn't know him, I just wondered about the guy. But now seeing his long history of enthusiastic charactersitics in these videos, I like the guy. He is the type of guy you would want on your team. If he is in, he is committed and not afraid to show his enthusiasm.

He must have played sports as a kid and had a coach early on in his life that really motivated him and he just uses that enthusiasm and energy to this day. He is definitely a good person to go into marketing.

I know he is the driving force behind the UMPC development. The mock up devices they showed at Microsoft's Site are the kind of devices we would all love to have. Hopefully his enthusiasm and skills, as a marketing person with the clout of being the head of a huge corporation, can get those kind of devices in our hands soon at a great price.


E.K.Virtanen

Quote from: Donald Darden on November 02, 2007, 11:38:03 PM
If you want the broader market, you have to make it simpler than it is.  Linux still has a geek flavor to it.  It uses cryptic names for things, it treats everything as a file (which makes some difficulties in handling devices), and it forces you to revert to a Terminal interface to find a workaround when something is not on the menu.

Look at the terminal interface as being retarded.  It goes back to the generic tty and VT100 terminal concepts.  You have to learn bash commands and master an arcane syntax to make use of it.  It is not user friendly.

Well my girlfriend has used linux like a year and half and she havent ever opened terminal or console. This far everything has been done from GUI. Secondly, when i used windows (95/98/nt/xp), i needed to use terminal time to time to get done what i needed to get done.
Common fact is that experienced linux users ratherly uses terminal than GUI since when you know how to do it with terminal, it is faster. But as told, you are not forced to use that "retarted" terminal or learn bash. And it is user friendly to let user choose do he want to use GUI or some terminal?  If things can be done differently than with windows, is it automaticly as no user friendly?
Something funny should read here?

Charles Pegge

I find the KDE desktop environment friendlier and more helpful more generous and more sophisticated than XP. I like the programming environment too but reserve judgment when it comes to GUI / 3D programming which I hope to be doing soon.

Donald is looking at it from an installer / tech support point of view and probing the boundaries of what is possible. This is a very hard path to follow if you are doing it from scratch with hardware that does not have full Linux support. Building your own Linux computer from scratch might be easier, given a free choice of components and no Microsoft to get in the way.

Donald Darden

With Linux as opposed to Windows, you are certainly more aware of what things are going on, although you will likely not understand it.  That amount of response messages as tasks are performed will likely confound, confuse, and frighten many people.  They have to get use to the idea that such messages are common in Linux.  I note that Ubuntu does more to hide the details of what is going on, which many will regard as being more user-friendly.

It's true that Linux can support more functionality from the GUI interface than found in Windows, but that in itself would mean a more extensive menu hierarchy that has to be learned, memorized, and navigated.  It is so highly customizable that once you learn and modify your menu system, you will be hard pressed to work well with someone else's.  The cookie-cutter approach supported by Windows has the advantage of uniformity, which for technical support, is often far more ideal from an enterprise viewpoint.

I have the feeling that at present, implementations of Linux fall just short of a platform that can just take off and overwhelm Microsoft dominance.  It is geared to the individual in the way that Windows cannot match, which actually works against it when it comes to market penetration.  You upset people when you give them too many choices, unless they know enough to make informed choices.

Take vehicles for example.  We just bought a new car, but a used one.  I would rather have held out for a few more years, believing that the gas car market is going to collapse in the wake of rising fuel prices and gas shortages.  The only cars worth owning then will be hybrids and alternate fuel vehicles, including electrics.  We seem on the verge where the auto industry will have to shift focus.  But they are fighting off the change, and the buying public is also still geared towards the status quo.  My wife is tired of waiting, and the old car just gets older, so she felt that we had to commit.  It's a nice older car, and reasonably good on gas, but I'm certain that in five years it will be too expensive to drive.

The switchover requires the essential collapse of the present car market, and there is too much infrastructure involved for that to occur naturally.  While alternative vehicles are becoming available, they are not optimum either in initial costs or continued use and support.  If any car manufacturer were to commit to a low cost, fuel efficient vehicle, the existing inventory of cars would become so much scrap metal almost overnight.  The prospect of possibly bringing the house down on themselves probably scares the pants off them, and they are putting off the day as long as possible.  I believe that it will be a maverick company, one that does not have anything invested in the current infrastructure, that will be the one to finally come out with the breakthrough model.  The market will have to follow suit once its success is assured.

Now the relationship between Windows and Linux is nowhere near the same, unless you recognize existing programs, applications, files, training, and documentation as corresponding to the same burden of existing infrastructure that has to be dealt with.  It is no good arguing that there are equally capable alternatives under Linux when the plain fact is that considerable rework and uncertainty are natural consequences of any effort to shift from Windows to Linux.  There is no way that a company can quit work on Friday with all their computers running Windows, and return to work on Monday and find that they are now proud users of Linux PCs instead, without the company under threat of going belly up by week's end.

But for individuals, who make their own choices, and who are willing to step up to relearning and remastering many PC skills, Linux may be a worthwhile investment of your time and effort.  However, as in buying a new car, there are many tradeoffs to consider before you can reach that conclusion.  And as part of that determination, you have to weigh the matter in terms of your needs and interests, those of your customers and peers, and any organization that you are a functional part of.

Charles Pegge

Those of us who spend most of their computer  hours on the web could switch to Linux any time and barely notice the difference. The transition is very smooth especially if Firefox is your preferred browser. But I expect that with the plummeting price of computers, most businesses and households will end up with a diversity of machines and systems for different tasks. As long as they are internet enabled, the transferability of data is assured, and the limitations of different operating systems will be less of an obstacle, to meeting needs.

E.K.Virtanen

QuoteYou upset people when you give them too many choices, unless they know enough to make informed choices.
errr...this is propably a cultural manner but i disagree heavily with this argument.  By giving choices for peoples, you give them chance to understand and learn. Now, with preinstalled monopoly, average man cant even choose since no one wont tell him about the choices. Can anyone say its a better way?

Quote
Those of us who spend most of their computer  hours on the web could switch to Linux any time and barely notice the difference.
True. For average user, its no matter is it windows or linux or some other alternative (Mac) eventhough often is claimed totally else.
Something funny should read here?