Why people choose Microsoft.

[excorcist]

Look, it seems that most of you miss the point.

Yes Linux is better
No linux is not easy to use right out of the box
Yes a lot of people don't even realize that linux exists (see lack of marketing)
No there is hardly any available support for linux (except for places like this)
No my grandpa could not use linux
No games are not easy to install on a linux box
Yes linux is extremely cryptic to new users

I have used computers since I put my first 8086 computer together. I have been working on them since the 286 came out and now I own my own Modification and Repair business (KC Case Modifications).

Come on guys, you really think that people don't use linux because they are blinded? I'm not blinded, I am a fully certified tech and have been for quite some time. Linux is ass to use in comparison to say, xp pro. Yes it is a resource hog but it's familiar and easy. I don't really want to have to recompile the newest copy of my favorite game just to install it on linux.

If Linux would develop some tools to simplify things for previous windows users then maybe more people would flock to linux. Unfortunately anyone that buys a prebuit system is an idiot (excepting laptops. See too low voltage caps on motherboards for purposes of money. I.E. Gateway - Used to work for them).

Just cause some of you are under the impression that you are Uber 1337 does nothing for the rest of the people in the world. Just because it was easy for you to learn does not mean that it is easy for someone with no knowledge to learn.

People do not want to have to read a 1000 page manual to use their computer. How would you feel if when you bought a new car you had to build the engine yourself?

Ahh fuckit. Half of you will probably not get my point since this thread was created for the bashing of windows.

[ March 25, 2003: Message edited by: excorcist ]

[emh]

quote:Originally posted by excorcist:
Look, it seems that most of you miss the point.

Yes Linux is better
No linux is not easy to use right out of the box
Yes a lot of people don't even realize that linux exists (see lack of marketing)
No there is hardly any available support for linux (except for places like this)
No my grandpa could not use linux
No games are not easy to install on a linux box
Yes linux is extremely cryptic to new users

I have used computers since I put my first 8086 computer together. I have been working on them since the 286 came out and now I own my own Modification and Repair business (KC Case Modifications).

Come on guys, you really think that people don't use linux because they are blinded? I'm not blinded, I am a fully certified tech and have been for quite some time. Linux is ass to use in comparison to say, xp pro. Yes it is a resource hog but it's familiar and easy. I don't really want to have to recompile the newest copy of my favorite game just to install it on linux.

If Linux would develop some tools to simplify things for previous windows users then maybe more people would flock to linux. Unfortunately anyone that buys a prebuit system is an idiot (excepting laptops. See too low voltage caps on motherboards for purposes of money. I.E. Gateway - Used to work for them).

Just cause some of you are under the impression that you are Uber 1337 does nothing for the rest of the people in the world. Just because it was easy for you to learn does not mean that it is easy for someone with no knowledge to learn.

People do not want to have to read a 1000 page manual to use their computer. How would you feel if when you bought a new car you had to build the engine yourself?

Ahh fuckit. Half of you will probably not get my point since this thread was created for the bashing of windows.

[ March 25, 2003: Message edited by: excorcist ]

You don't have to be bitter and condescending about it, geez....

I'm still relatively new to Linux (only using it about six months), and in the time I've used it, I've never had to:
-recompile a kernel
-read a 1000-page manual.  Anything I read that would help me with something was never more than one page

You say that Linux has no tools to ease the transition.  Well, Mandrake Linux has all sorts of graphical tools to help with the configuration of things on your computer.

It's not so much that any flavor of Linux is harder to use than Windows, it's more that it is different.  Some things will be done differently, and that takes some getting used to.

What if somebody, that has never used Windows before, started their computer experience with Linux instead?  Can you honestly say that they would never be able to use Linux?  Anybody that has never used computers before are going to take a long time to learn them, regardless of operating system.

I should state for the record that I'm generally an idiot when it comes to computers.  My computer programming experience has never advanced beyond Applesoft BASIC, and I do not, nor am I working toward, a degree having to do with computers.  I'm merely an average user that uses his computer for simple things like internet, e-mail, word processing, finance tracking, etc.  (okay, I also use it for music production)  And I find Mandrake Linux 9.0 to be very simple and straightforward to use for all of those tasks.

[excorcist]

ok good points

I shoulda made an exception about mandrake. It is relitavely easy to use.

Wasn't trying to be condesending about it, sorry about that.

I just wish linux was a little more user friendly.

[Stryker]

RedHat 7.3 I think pretty much anybody can install and use without any problems. With the possible exception of network setup (most people dont mess with that anyways) i mean dialup or non-dhcp internet connections. RedHat 8 gave me a few issues which i resolved. But most people wouldn't be able to fix what i did. What would you like to be able to do that doesn't have a graphics tool? maybe i'll make one for you.

[Faust]

quote:apt-get doesn't do well over dial up.

heh heh heh...
slightly off topic but here goes:
My step by step guide to a better apt-get
1) Move into Australian university
2) Notice that net access is fast (ethernet)
3) Notice that net access is expensive
4) Notice that mirror.aarnet.edu.au is freely accessible from any Australian uni or uni campus.
5) Notice that mirror.aarnet.edu.au is a debian mirror.
6) Install debian to try it out (fucking cool btw, best distributions so far ignoring the sheer age of the X server but you can replace that.)
7) Say out loud "stuff the cdrom install im using  http."
8) Swear loudly when you d/l debian install at OVER nine megabytes per second... (at this speed my processor is actually slowing down my net access... I get a huge perfomance hit when I download iso image because my 256 megabytes of SDRAM cant hold it all quickly enough.)
9) Smile. Dance.  Yell "linux rules!" at top of lungs.

Well that was my off topic bragging session.
I now return you to your life (already in progress)
                   

[emh]

quote:Originally posted by excorcist:
ok good points

I shoulda made an exception about mandrake. It is relitavely easy to use.

Wasn't trying to be condesending about it, sorry about that.

I just wish linux was a little more user friendly.

No hard feelings.  The environment here can get the best of us....    

User friendliness in Linux does have room for improvement, but I personally never found anything to be prohibitively difficult.

[TheQuirk]

quote:Originally posted by Force:
I know Linux is denting Microsoft's monopoly but still few people use Linux.  The reason people dont flood to Linux is beacuse it is a lot harder than Windows (or because "new" means bad like XP     ).  I am not saying Windows is good by any means, i am saying it is all people know.  Most of us here are young, and young people try new things.  The average person:
1) doesnt have the time to run and learn a new OS
2) doesnt really care because Windows half-asses things for them and they think it is peachy because they know nothing else.
I just got RedHat, and i love it, im still a very large noob at it but i can see once i get the hang of it, i will have no need to dual boot with windows anymore.
I think Windows' dominace will aventually change, but right now there are lots of people who just dont give a shit, they just wanna check their email and chat basicly.  Most people dont know how to do the most basic things on Windows, let alone try to learn a much more difficult system (I feel it is only difficult because it is new, if every1 was brought up on Linux and Windows was the newer kid on the block, if you will, Windows would be the hard one to learn)

That's for clearing that up.

[TheQuirk]

quote:Originally posted by Linux User #5225982375:
The only reason Linux even stands a chance against Microsoft is because it *is* free software, in my opinion.  Think about other superior OSes like BeOS or MacOS who have yet to make a dent in Windows' sales.

A few major computer OEMs were going to include BeOS along with Windows. The reason they didn't?

In the last minute, some nice Microsoft guys came to the OEMs and read them a few paragraphs of their agreement stating they were not allowed to add anything other than Windows to the bootloader.

Teehee. Toshiba, I think, ended up installing BeOS but never adding it to the MBR... Ha ha.

[Calum]

quote:Originally posted by excorcist:
ok good points

I shoulda made an exception about mandrake. It is relitavely easy to use.

Wasn't trying to be condesending about it, sorry about that.

I just wish linux was a little more user friendly.

it is.

sorry, but if you plan to roar off a bunch of crap that's five years out of date about how linux is only for people who love to waste hours writing their own drivers and all that crap that windoids often come out with when they are faced with something that threatens your status quo then i think you deserve all you get.

writing off the entire forums here in your first post by saying you won't be understood by us moronic linux users (yes i am paraphrasing) is simply insecurity on your part, enabling you to feel good about yourself regardless of what kind of response you receive.

there are *many* linux distros that a child could work with *easily*, are you saying a fully qualified "tech guy" would have problems doing something a child could cope with?

don't get too detached, you might miss something that would otherwise have benefited you greatly.

[ March 28, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: crusader for justice & peace ]

[ShawnD1]

if you want to look for reasons, i'm a model example of why not to use Linux


client reasons:

1. the game Half-Life doesn't work in Linux becaue the anti-cheat detects Win4Lin and Wine as being 'hacks' because they technically count as hooks (outside programs that run the game)

2. the game Diablo2 doesn't work in Linux

3. Kazaa doesn't work in Linux.... i've tried Gnutella and although it works, it's not nearly as good because it doesn't filter out fake files, not as many clients and so forth.

4. i can't run videos in Linux. i watch a lot of movies on my computer but movies are avi format  and most of them use DivX and Xvid plugins which are Windows only

5. no MSN messenger. although Linux has ICQ, people are starting to move away from ICQ for some reason and moving towards the sucky ass MSN messenger. although i don't exactly like MSN, MSN is the only chat program all my friends from school seem to have (because they're dumb)

6. my scanner and digital camera don't work on Linux

server reasons:
1. i can't get PHP to work on Linux.... this is a lame excuse though because i got it working before but i just can't get it working now
2. i can't get MySQL to work, programs just never seem to be able to connect to it even after mysqld is running


little annoyances
1. i can't copy a URL from text editor into the address bar of Mozilla or Opera, you can only copy and paste within 1 program

2. when i double click the address bar in Mozilla or Opera, the clipboard pops up asking me what to do and it's annoying as hell... i still haven't figured out how to change that

3. similar things group together just like in windows but in Linux i can't figure out how to turn that off, it's nowhere in the control panel

[flap]

DivX and Xvid work in Linux.
You can get MSN clients for Linux.
PHP and Mysql work fine in Linux.
You can copy and paste between programs.
You can turn off the clipboard.
If you're talking about KDE then right-click on the panel, go to the Taskbar section, uncheck "Group similar tasks"

[xyle_one]

quote:Originally posted by ShawnD1:
if you want to look for reasons, i'm a model example of why not to use Linux


client reasons:

1. the game Half-Life doesn't work in Linux becaue the anti-cheat detects Win4Lin and Wine as being 'hacks' because they technically count as hooks (outside programs that run the game)

2. the game Diablo2 doesn't work in Linux

3. Kazaa doesn't work in Linux.... i've tried Gnutella and although it works, it's not nearly as good because it doesn't filter out fake files, not as many clients and so forth.

4. i can't run videos in Linux. i watch a lot of movies on my computer but movies are avi format  and most of them use DivX and Xvid plugins which are Windows only

5. no MSN messenger. although Linux has ICQ, people are starting to move away from ICQ for some reason and moving towards the sucky ass MSN messenger. although i don't exactly like MSN, MSN is the only chat program all my friends from school seem to have (because they're dumb)

6. my scanner and digital camera don't work on Linux

server reasons:
1. i can't get PHP to work on Linux.... this is a lame excuse though because i got it working before but i just can't get it working now
2. i can't get MySQL to work, programs just never seem to be able to connect to it even after mysqld is running


little annoyances
1. i can't copy a URL from text editor into the address bar of Mozilla or Opera, you can only copy and paste within 1 program

2. when i double click the address bar in Mozilla or Opera, the clipboard pops up asking me what to do and it's annoying as hell... i still haven't figured out how to change that

3. similar things group together just like in windows but in Linux i can't figure out how to turn that off, it's nowhere in the control panel

i still think that the "no-games" argument is bullshit. they do make systems designed specifically for video games, are much cheaper than a computer, and run on your tv. which of course, has a bigger screen.
okay. i hate windows. but it is easy. it is also very much a piece of shit. jaguar is perfect. its easier to install apps on it than windows. its easier to use. its unix. it has never crashed on me. (well, i made it crash on purpose once just to see what it was like. i cant remember how i did it though. it was on some mac site). linux is not easy. its not extremelly hard either. i have just been spoiled with macOSX, so jumping into linux is proving to be a challenge.

[ShawnD1]

ecsyle_one, console games suck. why play a game with a maximum of 4 people on some console with people who have to be at my house instead of playing with up to 32 (64 in newer games) who could be from anywhere in the world? i've tried that online PS2 thing and it sucked, all game servers that exists are what are called 'listen servers' meaning that they are run by a person who is playing the game at the current time, as soon as that person leaves - the server goes down. another gay thing about console online games is that there will never be 'mods' for them. have you heard of the game Counter-Strike? Counter-Strike is a mod for the game Half-Life. although CS is one of the most popular online games right now, it still can't be deemed as a game on its own because it is based on Half-Life. there are tons of popular 'mods' for games such as TacOps for UT, TFC, NS, DOD and CS for Half-Life. most servers and people playing Half-Life, UT, Quake* are playing mods of those games which are in many cases created by independant groups of people or third party companies, not by the company to make the original game. if you take out the ability of having mods for games, you're just left with 1 really gay ass game that will suck.


flap, you said "You can copy and paste between programs". i don't doubt that you can, but seriously is there a trick or something? when installing something, i would always read the install or readme file in text editor and it would have some link in it, usualy to a FAQ. i would scroll over the link, right click and hit 'copy' then go into Mozilla and right click into the address bar and hit 'paste'. it would never paste anything though  

[ March 28, 2003: Message edited by: ShawnD1 ]

[flap]

In X you copy simply by selecting text. The middle mouse button pastes.

[ezra abrams]

General Motors announces a great new car; every morning u go out, measure the temperature and humidity, and get out some tools and set your engine for optimal performance...
Of course its ludicrous, but that is sort of the theory of linux: for a lot more work, you get "better" performance. Who Cares ? get it through your head: 99% of people, like me, dont care.I use computers everyday, and I really dont care that bill gates is a filthy rich jerk, or that the code is bloated, or that their are hidden files that i cant control. I do my work, and go home, and I have better things to worry about.
Let me add an analogy: during the 80s, Reagan would say these absurd things on TV. Someone complained to one of his aids, and the answer - u can look this up- SO what if he "misstates" millions hear him on tv; thousands read the correction in the times the next morning.
Linux people are sort of like that minority that reads the paper and actually cares that the president made non true statements.
to put is another way: someone once explained that hte problem with al gore is, he thinks if he just had enoght hours to explain taxes, you would agree with him. People are not logical; I dont think linux will ever will because peoples brains have limited bandwidth, and who cares about a new os or windows looking at you.
The funny thing is, bill doesnt have to do anything: the linux people will actually fight for the privelidge to slit each others throats. if they had gotten together and put together one real, with applications and drivers, they might have had a chance. As it is, with redhat and gnu and all this other stuff, they are diffusing their energy: their own anarchy and freedom is bills greatest weapon!!
Actually linux has a real use. I'm serious here. If you talk to older (60s) engineers, they all played with crystal radios as kids, and they are all worried about what the engineers of tomorrow, todays kids are gonna do. Because now everything is a chip, and no 12 year old can monkey within a chip. Well the answer is linux: not really usefull, but great for a 12 year old. And those 12 year olds will grow up and go to mit and caltech and so forth.