[ale] Wine

docx at io.com docx at io.com
Fri Jan 20 11:56:15 EST 2006


On Fri, January 20, 2006 4:25 pm, Geoffrey said:
> docx at io.com wrote:
>
> Let's not turn this into a windows/Linux debate okay?  But, what you've
> said might have applied 5-10 years ago, not now.  There are a number of
> Linux distros that are point and click.  My daughter installed her own,
> my mother-in-law is on SuSE 10.1 and has been on SuSE since 7.3.
>
> You need to update your knowledgebase.

My desktops have been Windows because of work constraints.  My experience with
Linux has been primarily from a command-line working on boxes in data centers
far away from me.  I'm sure desktop Linux has progressed much in the past 7-8
years.

My point, though, was things failing in a different way than people are used
to.  This is a serious problem (and speaking as someone who supports many,
many phone company folks who've "done things this way for years and years and
I don't care if it's better, I can't do it as well as I do it now", I am
intimately familiar with the problem).

I'm definitely not trying to start a Windows/Linux debate.  I'm just saying
some folks have comfort zones and prefer not to be moved outside them.  If
there's something better to move them outside their comfort zone, it better
damned well be better and not have any problems at all or they'll go back to
their comfort zones faster than a rabbit to its hole.

>> For geeks (and I number among that fold), getting Linux (and most any unix,
>> for that matter) to do what we want is easy.  For Aunt May and Uncle Bob, it
>> ain't that easy.  And when you're writing software targeted at replacing the
>> operating system that Aunt May and Uncle Bob use, it better be as rock solid
>> as possible, because the first couple of errors they run intow ill make them
>> wonder "What the heck am I doing running this crap?  Let me just have my old
>> computer back.  That worked."  It's not that they're getting more errors,
>> necessarily, but that they're getting different errors they don't know how
>> to
>> work around.
>
> Again, you post might have been accurate 10 years ago, not now.

Human nature has changed such that crotchety people would prefer new and
uncomfortable (though better) over old, comfortable (but worse) without being
pushed and prodded?  And if there are initial issues with the
new/better/uncomfortable, crotchety folks won't want to immediately revert
back to what they know instead of working around the issues?  I really haven't
been paying attention, have I?

;-)

-- 
Dylan Northrup - docx at io.com - http://www.io.com/~docx/
"Harder to work, harder to strive, hard to be glad to be alive, but it's
 really worth it if you give it a try." -- Cowboy Mouth, 'Easy'




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