[NBLUG/talk] #se7en -- http://windows7sins.org/

[Kyle Rankin]

On Thu, Sep 03, 2009 at 07:02:42PM -0000, Ed Rogers wrote:
> I forwarded this to a friend at hp (marketing guy for servers). Here is
> his take. Just another version of what I was saying before.
> Ed
> 
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: RE: [Fwd: Re: [NBLUG/talk] #se7en -- http://windows7sins.org/]
> From: "Howard, Stephen" <stephen.howard at hp.com>
> Date: Thu, September 3, 2009 6:20 pm
> To: "ed at rogersecommerce.com" <ed at rogersecommerce.com>
> 
[snip]
> 
> I think Linux is probably a much better operating system but there isn't
> the easy support available and that makes a big difference.  If someone
> tried to put a shell around Linux to make it foolproof, they'd probably
> want to be paid for the effort (which would be pretty big considering the
> number of different types and generations of PCs there are out there).
> And then the experience -- to the under-educated users -- might be about
> like Windows.
> 
> 
> Stephen Howard | H | Scalable Computing & Infrastructure |
> +1.508.467.4788 | Email - stephen.howard at hp.com
> 
[snip]

There definitely /is/ the easy desktop support available for Linux, it just
isn't available from HP (yet). If you buy a Dell PC with Ubuntu
pre-installed it's supported out of the box and you can call them with any
problems you have. Same thing goes for manufacturers like Asus and others
that include Linux OSes on their machines. Will any of these people support
your custom install of <insert distro>? Well probably as well as they'll
support you if you take it upon yourself to upgrade a custom version of
Windows.

Fact of the matter is, the OS and the applications running on it, and the
learning curve necessary to switch is going to become more and more
irrelevant as us computer-using dinosaurs get older. The current generation
growing up has used a computer their entire lives, and to them switching
between operating systems is no big deal. After all, when you buy a new
computer these days, the out of the box user interface is likely going to
be different from whatever was on your old computer. Windows 2000 is really
different from Win XP and that's different from Vista and they are all
different from OSX, yet people seem to have no problem switching to a Mac.

To give a different example, my 70-year-old father-in-law dual boots
between Ubuntu and Windows. He was concerned with spyware and viruses so I
installed a dual-boot environment so in case Ubuntu didn't work with
something he could go back. Long story short, he spends the vast majority
of his time Ubuntu. He mostly uses his computer on the web and using email
and he commented to me he didn't see what the big deal was--Ubuntu didn't
seem that different to him. And no, it's not because I'm providing a lot of
support. Other than installing the system and setting it up to work on his
hardware--something Dell or some other manufacturer could have done--I've
not really had to do anything. He lives 3 hours away on a modem connection
so it's non-trivial for me to help out even if it was needed. And yes his
"winmodem" works fine in Linux--got the custom driver in an Ubuntu package
straight from Dell.

To actually somewhat get back to the topic of schools attempting to (and
failing) to teach technology based on market trends, last I heard Linux was
the #2 most desirable technology to know in the market right now.
Technology is going to always progress way faster than a University can
keep up (which is, I thought, the reason for certs and trade schools
anyway). If they give students a solid foundational, general-purpose
education, the student (especially the upcoming generation) is going to
yawn at the prospect of figuring out a new user interface or program.

To sum up, give the user a little more credit. They (again, especially the
upcoming generation) is better at technology than you think.

-- 
Kyle Rankin
NBLUG President
The North Bay Linux Users' Group
http://nblug.org
IRC: greenfly at irc.freenode.net #nblug 
kyle at nblug.org