Let me guess, the last time you used Windows was 1996?The last time I used Win-d'ohs, of my own free will, was in 2001.
The last time I bought anti-virus soft and updates was in 2001.
The last time I needed to install anti-spyware was in 2001.
The last time I needed to install Adaware was in 2001.
The last time I had some system-destroying nasty from my in-box was in 2001.
The last time I had to fork over $100+ for programming aids was 2001.
Been using Linux almost exclusively for the past 3+ years, and I haven't had anything viral bother me, I haven't needed to go broke on third-party apps to make a useful system. I haven't looked back.
Giving those uneducated users (the ones who download e-mail attachments from [email protected] that claim to be "Windows Updates") a Linux system isn't going to solve the problem. If anything, it's going to frustrate users even more - and only lead to slower growth in the technology sector as consumer confidence and interest wanes.Believe me, casual users don't come more "uneducated" than Mother. A year-and-a-half ago, I picked up a free Dell Dimension with a P-I (113MHz), 64MB RAM, 1.5GB HD + 1.0GB HD, a 2.0MB RAM Vid card that was made by some outfit long out of business. (Could you even run XP on that?) It came with Win-95 as an OEM install. I blew that away, and installed Slackware. With KDE, Mother has had
no trouble using this system for sending/receiving E-Mails, Googling for information, or buying stuff from E-Bay. She is so "unknowledgeable" that I doubt she even knows what Linux is, let alone that Slackware is a Linux distro. Hell, she doesn't even know what a "distro" is, or that Linux comes in quite a few variations. Now, it doesn't matter whether or not she clicks on some peculiar E-Mail attachment, and I am not being called constantly to fix something that got broke due to a Win-Virus(tm). Mother had far more frustration working with the Win-Doesn't systems she had at work before retirement. So all that talk about how Linux isn't "ready" for the casual, atechnological user is pure BS.
Brandon, you sound like one of those Winderz "Sys Admins" running scared now that companies are, more and more, beginning to realize just what a "Bill Gates" of goods MS sold them. Perhaps it would be better for you to polish up on your UNIX admin skills, rather than posting the same old non-sense on an anti-MS forum?