[ale] Linux in Atlanta's public schools

[Jay Lozier]

On Sat, 13 Jul 2013 23:43:53 -0400, Doug Hall <doughalldev at gmail.com>  
wrote:

> Practice this comment:
>
> Sure, there are companies which you could pay, that you could call upon  
> for help when >needed. However, from personal experience, answers to the  
> most common problems are >readily available from a Google/Bing/Whatever  
> search. If you have a more complicated >problem, then call me or send an  
> email to the Atlanta Linux Enthusiasts list, asking for >help. I  
> personally would hold off paying a third party support company until I  
> needed >them.
>
> Many people are initially concerned about the lack of official support,  
> but unless you >have a complicated piece of customized software (like  
> Oracle Financials), then your own >IT people should be smart enough to  
> make it work. Linux is not Windows, so many IT >support people will have  
> to learn something new. It's not that complicated, however. >There's a  
> HUGE community of people working with it. Not having a phone number to  
> call is >a 20th century excuse. Today, support is available in so many  
> forms. Ask the guy how >many times he called Microsoft last year!

On a dual boot box (W7 and Linux Mint) for some reason the W7 partition  
decided to reassign the drive letters. The C and D drive letters were  
switched. Searching for an answer turned up no answers including M$'  
sites. I decide to try a live chat which desended into frustration because  
I wanted the answer to how to fix the problem without paying any money. M$  
refused to give an answer without cash. I ended up just reinstalling W7  
after backing up all the data files and later reinstalling grub.

Even if you called M$ it is quite possible you will be asked to fork over  
some money. Often similar problems with Linux can be fixed without  
spending any money with a quick search and little bit of reading to make  
sure the issue is the same yours.

My wife who has a couple of photo editing app that are only available on  
Windows requires a Windows install (not Adobe Photoshop). But as she has  
been using Linux Mint for the last several months as her primary OS and  
has developed a passionate hatred for Windows. So for her the issue is not  
the OS, she would ditch Windows if she could find a photo editing  
application she liked; she does not like GIMP. So the issue about support  
to me is lie to be blunt; the real reason is fear of change. Now if they  
said we use XYZ and it is mission critical then they have very legitimate  
reason not to switch assuming there is no Linux equivalent. Office macros  
are often problematic but macros can be a serious security risk so I would  
tell them to ditch the macros for security.
>
<snip>
>



-- 
Jay Lozier
jslozier at gmail.com
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