Microsoft Hatred FAQ

[David Schwartz]

Mike Schilling wrote:

> "David Schwartz" <davids at webmaster.com> wrote in message
> news:djpf90$pbm$1 at nntp.webmaster.com...

>>    There is no different to Microsoft beween a bare computer and one
>> preloaded with Linux or FreeBSD. One can quickly be converted to
>> other with minimal cost of effort. In the market, bare PCs really do
>> compete with Windows PCs.

> There's a huge difference to the non-techy consumer.  One of the
> buggest reasons Linux has had a reputation of being harder to use
> than Windows was the fact that Linux had to be installed, while
> Windows just booted up.

    Is that really true? I mean, I remember distributions of Linux that you 
could just stick in the CD, boot from CD, and you were up in minutes. 
Installing was as simple as pushing the 'install to hard drive' button.

    I think one of the biggest reasons Linux has a reputation of being 
harder to use than Windows is that it *is* harder to use. However, the 
payoff is that when a Linux machine breaks, you can fix it. When a Windows 
machine breaks, you pretty much have to reinstall. And Windows machines 
break in this way more often because it's much harder to limit what a user 
or program can do.

    Linux, for example, would be easier to use if it had no permissions 
checks and always ran everything as root. However, it doesn't do this the 
way Windows does (or more accurately, the way Windows users typically do), 
because that's just not the Linux way.

    I'm trying to think of a good analogy to make my point clearer, but I 
can't.

    IMO, a person who doesn't find installing Linux to be easy wouldn't be 
able to use a Linux desktop (or do much with a Linux server either for that 
matter). But I could be out of date, I haven't really tried to use the more 
recent Linux desktop builds as desktops. But, IMO, that was certainly true 
in the time frame we're talking about.

    DS