Originally Posted by Keef
2. Networked printers are a nightmare: they will work under Linux, but you'll spend many hours getting them to. It's a lot better for your nerves to buy a printer for each Linux machine.
??? SuSE and Ubuntu saw my network printers out of the box!
Originally Posted by Keef
3. Wireless connection is awful.
Agree - took me a bit of fiddling to get that right.
STL, don't dismiss the thought of Linux QUITE so quickly. The first couple of weks CAN be a bit mysterious for some things (Wordprocessors, Spreadsheets, Internet and email almost always work out-of-the-box), but buying a copy of "Linux for Dummies" (or some such) makes it easier - after all, look how many copies of books teaching Windows are sold! It's not as though people don't struggle with Windows at times!
Once you're a bit familiar with how Linux "thinks" (and you DON'T need a Ph.D. or to spend months mastering stuff like ../config.-grunt-/kipper -t +R -x +z:1 ) then Linux is MUCH easier to "fix" than Windows (I don't recall ever having to type stuff like that, though you certainly will have if you want to explore the outer limits, but Windows is the same actually). Unlike Windows, there's no single impenetrable Registry, which if mysteriously corrupted spells reinstall, but ordinary text configuration files that are much simpler to change if things don't behave as you'd like. But most of the time nowadays you can work from the GUI and there's no need to type arcane commands.
While we're on the subject of the command line, in ages past many people managed to work with DOS and the vagaries of CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and survive.....were they all supermen?
How about DOS's print command?
print /d:device /b:size /u:ticks1 /m:ticks2 /s:ticks3 /q:size /t drive
path\ filename /c /p
Not that I recall ever having to tinker with it, mind you.
Yup, SOMETIMES Linux can be harder, but it's mostly unfamiliarity with something that looks a bit different and behaves a bit differently. It doesn't take ages to get "working familar", though it takes just as much time to be come a Linux guru (I'm not one) as to become a Windows guru.
The rewards for a bit of work are great - freedom from viruses, freedom from trojans, freedom from MS's dictates and a vast raft of software (including accounting software that does VAT
), most of which is free too.
Yup, I'm a Linux evangelist, but I'm not a fanatic - some things like games and photoediting just work better in Windows for the moment - so have two machines that double-boot, one mostly runs Windows (it's essentially a games and experiments box) and the other one runs mostly SuSE for serious work.
Unlike Bill G. I reckon that the world is big enough for both systems to co-exist in and there will always be strengths and weaknesses on each side. The competition is good for both and even better for us users for neither can then sit back on their laurels, knowing that folks will just have to accept what they dish up 'cos there's no alternative.
Viva a Windows that learns to behave like a responsible citizen rather than a greedy sneak, and Viva a Linux that climbs down of it's elitist perch and does some more work on the user experience.