Lindows

[Calum]

this is more or less how my flatmate is going to do it.

he has got mandrake and is going to test it on a few gigs at the end of his drive, taking his time about it. he has used linux years ago in university but wasn't really interested at the time. his girlfriend will be a tougher nut to crack. she's done Computing atuniversity too, but is very stuck in her ways. she was moaning about some rubbish in IE, popups or some security issue or something the other day, no i remember it was something about the firewall wouldn't let IE see any websites, so she had to disable the firewall (!!!!!) and i said "why don't you use a decent browser and you wouldn't have that problem, and then your security wouldn't be compromised?" and she said (after a perfect 1.5 second blank stare) "oh well, it could be the firewall that's at fault, and we'll be upgrading it on the weekend".

what can you do? i only suggested a decent browser! if people will use windows and IE, i think they deserve what they get.

this is the same person who said 2 days later "well i thought about computer security but then i thought well what have i got to hide?", to which i answered "well, it's not so much that as having your machine compromised and used in a distributed denial of service attack implicating you as an accessory to the crime". Another blank stare, not so long this time and then "oh well, there is that i suppose..."

again, what can you do?

even mandrake's too good for them in a way...

[dishawjp]

For what it's worth, in my not so humble opinion, any distro that gets people away from Microsoft is a good distro.  I don't use Lindows myself, but then I don't use Xandros or Lycoris or any other distro designed for Windows switchers.  But I do see value in all these distributions for people who are not computer geeks and who just want to try alternatives to buggy, spyware-laden, virus-ridden Microsoft products.

I've used Lindows to introduce Windows users to Linux and then, later, converted them to Red Hat or Fedora.  They might not have been able to make the transition directly from Windows to Linux as easily otherwise.  And for those who decided to stay (for the time being) with Lindows... at least their computers aren't being used to launch DOS attacks against my Linux server.

I know that this isn't a popular stance here, but if Robertson is getting people to try alternatives to MSWindows with his OS, then more power to him.  And if his customers later decide to move up to Linux-without-training-wheels, then more power to them.  And if we really care about the future of personal computing, then we should support them.

Just my $.02

Jim Dishaw