Very Computer

This morning I read this article on the MS website
(http://microsoft.com/sbserver/evaluation/compare/linux.asp), and I
decided to write this post about my experiece with Windows and Linux.

I've always worked professionally in the Windows world, but I've also
been quite curious about Linux as a known rock-solid operating system
platform. I believe I have purchased each and every version of Red Hat
Linux since the Halloween release all the way to 7.3 just last week.
I've also purchased Mandrake 8 and a couple of other distros.

However, been in charge of MIS for a couple of organizations for the
past 15 years, I still cannot seem to find in Linux everything that my
users need (or want) in the desktop area: for instance, my users
absolutely love Microsoft Office, and me too BTW. Many times I've
shown Red Hat Linux to some of our staff on a couple of Linux pilot
computers, and they have been impressed at first but after a few
minutes they all complain about the parroquial user intetface (they've
seen up to gnome 1.4 and kde 3), the lack of depth of the Linux office
productivity software (I showed them StarOffice 5.2, emacs, which they
absolutely hated, AbiWord, the KOffice family of apps, etc). All in
all they all tell me this Linux stuff maybe technically very good
under the hood, but it is way too crude for today's business users who
are used to quality GUI such as Windows and the Mac. So basically, my
test users have told me: thank you but no thank you -- we want our
Windows!

One thing each and every of my test pilot Linux users have mentioned
is the "horrible fonts" specially on word processors and web browsers.
I don't really expect any modern computer users to accept the
substandard font quality of the current Linux distros on their
desktop. IMO, if Red Hat would one day released a version with the
quality of fonts and GUI sophistication of, say,  Windows XP or the
Max OS/X (out-of-the-box), they would for the first time stand a real
chance on the desktop, and so they would start to attract software
developers to relase their Linux versions of desktop apps. IMO,
without matching or beating the current GUI and font quality of
Windows XP and Mac OS/X (out-of-the-box), it will remain as an
alternative OS with very few users (at least in the desktop OS
market).

On the OS stability side, I believe that many hard-core Linux users
may not have spent a long time testing and using the latest breed of
Windows OS software such as Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000
both Professional (client) and Advanced Server (server). I believe the
idea that most Linux users have about Windows being unstable is about
the old Windows 9x and Me versions which were simply horrible in the
stability and robustness department. But in talking to many of my IT
colegues and in my own support experience, OS stability is just not an
issue any more. My Windows 2000 (client) and specially my Windows XP
workstations are rock-solid stable. And the fully-patched Windows NT 4
and Windows 2000 server I support are incredibly stable, they go for
months without roboots -- in fact, we only reboot them when we do
scheduled maintenance. Our Windows XP client and Windows 2000 server
uptime ratio is at 99% if not better.

In the TCO (cost of ownership) deparment, all companies I've worked
with as well as my consulting clients, are not too concerned at all
about paying for software licenses. I guess they are used to having to
pay for things and software is not exception. Free software certainly
is an attractive proposition but in my experiece employers and
business owners and specially CFO people are more concerned about
using main-stream software that is familiar to the staff in general
rather than using a free OS or program that nobody knows or even offer
training for the staff.

So that's my post. Please don't send me any flame mail or insult me
for simply expresing my opinion. My point is not flame, troll or
insult any Linux users but instead to report how some people feel
about Linux and Windows from the business and corporate every-day
office work side. I have Red Hat Linux 7.3 installed and available on
my 2nd disk, but the Windows XP Professional, the Office XP software
ans Windows admin tools that I run on my 1st disk are absolutely
wonderful, look and feel much much better and get all my work done day
after day.

Kerke
---

Error Log for Thu, 11 Jul 2002 11:21:05 -0400: segfault in module "J.
Padron" - dump details are as follows...

Quote:> So that's my post. Please don't send me any flame mail or insult me for
> simply expresing my opinion. My point is not flame, troll or insult any
> Linux users but instead to report how some people feel about Linux and
> Windows from the business and corporate every-day office work side. I
> have Red Hat Linux 7.3 installed and available on my 2nd disk, but the
> Windows XP Professional, the Office XP software ans Windows admin tools
> that I run on my 1st disk are absolutely wonderful, look and feel much
> much better and get all my work done day after day.

Another post from a throw-away email address (yahoo) posted via google...

It would seem to me that anyone who really wanted their opinions to be
taken seriously would not choose the most anonymous means of conveying
those opinions to the group.

I know all of the arguments for using Google and that many people also use
public free email services like hotmail and yahoo, however it cannot be
denied that the majority of the anti-linux sentiments that are presented
in this forum have both of these as the means and method.

This says to me that the poster is not sincere in the least and not to be
taken seriously, and this long dissertation on the so-called "flaws" of
Linux is just proof that this is just another hot steaming load of BS to
be piped to /dev/null.

For future reference, if anyone really desires for their opinions to be
considered in any semblance of seriousness, then they should at least have
the decency, consideration and "balls" to be able to post using a real
newreader, with either a munged real email address or another viable and
reliable means of contact.

Other than that, I myself shall consider all such posts from here on as
merely trolls and pass them on and would advise all others to do the same.

--
rapskat -   1:35pm  up 7 days,  2:54,  3 users,  load average: 0.11, 0.17, 0.09
156 processes: 153 sleeping, 2 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  5.6% user,  1.7% system,  0.0% nice,  1.8% idle
drop the hot to mail me

I am willing to love all mankind except an American. -- Samuel Johnson.

Really, I think this a non-issue these days. This is a snapshot of my KDE
desktop, the fonts are Luxi Sans and ship with KDE.

http://digilander.libero.it/carmageddonata/images/snapshot2.png

They are not the default, but selecting them is as easy as clicking on
control panel --> Look and feel --> fonts.

I honestly don't see what's wrong with these fonts. I think everything's
_very_ clear and sharp :-)

Cheers
Marcello

Blah, if you were worth a bare gram of IT gold, you would understand
fully that users dont know what they want, dont know what they need,
and are entirely unqualified to make ANY decision about their computers
at ALL, period, case closed.

You want them using linux?  Shove it down their throats.

-----.

--
"Hell, rocket science isn't even rocket science"
--A NASA rocket scientist, undernet, circa 1996

<Very Big Snippage>

Quote:

> So that's my post. Please don't send me any flame mail or insult me
> for simply expresing my opinion. My point is not flame, troll or
> insult any Linux users but instead to report how some people feel
> about Linux and Windows from the business and corporate every-day
> office work side. I have Red Hat Linux 7.3 installed and available on
> my 2nd disk, but the Windows XP Professional, the Office XP software
> ans Windows admin tools that I run on my 1st disk are absolutely
> wonderful, look and feel much much better and get all my work done day
> after day.

Yahoo account...

google post

never sticks around to answer any of the replies to his other postings...

*ing about fonts... never quantifies anything just wibbles on about
things being crude...

Then I search google groups and come up with this gem considering that this
guy claims to have been in charge of MIS for 15 years ...

Quote:>>However, been in charge of MIS for a couple of organizations for the
>>past 15 years,

His own words...

I find this gem of a post posted just a month ago...

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject: How to hide menu folders and items from other users?
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 2002 16:32:41 -0400
Lines: 12
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000

Newsgroups:
microsoft.public.windowsxp.general,microsoft.public.windowsxp.help_and_support,microsoft.public.windowsxp.security_admin
NNTP-Posting-Host: user250.209.42.34.dsli.com 209.42.34.250

On my WinXP Professional standalone computer, my WinXP account is a member
of the local Administrators group.

I'd like to be able to hide certain menu folders and menu items from any
user who is not a member of the local Administrators group. What is the
easiest and most proper way to accomplish that?

Thank you,

J. Padron
---------------------------------------------------------------------

strangely... he got no replies at all to that post... I wonder if Erik F can
help out a fellow professional here...

and his previous post in this newsgroup...

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: .NET Server, Windows XP Client and C#: Who Needs Linux?
Date: 14 Jun 2002 13:47:04 -0700
Organization: http://www.veryComputer.com/
Lines: 27

NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.42.34.250
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
X-Trace: posting.google.com 1024087624 7586 127.0.0.1 (14 Jun 2002 20:47:04
GMT)

NNTP-Posting-Date: 14 Jun 2002 20:47:04 GMT

After I saw a preview of the upcoming .NET server software, using
Windows XP Professional client software and programming with the new
Microsoft C# language, I realized that the Linux days are counted.

As an IT professional, I regret having spent a few months learing RH
Linux, what a royal waste of time that was. Take a look outside, what
are the realistic chances of getting a real high paying job based on
your Linux experience? The answer is almost zero, nada. The
professional IT world belongs to Microsoft. Forget the fact that you
have to pay for MS software: the high paying companies you want to
work with don't really care for that, the software cost is the least
of their concern. I erally don't care the least how much software
costs, companies pay for it happily (that's why Bill Gates is rich and
happy). You offer to replace their MS Win2000 servers and
workstations, MS SQL and Exchange servers with Linux (Linux who?) at
"no cost" and they will laugh at you, and they'll probably fire you
for being an idiot.

IT pros: stay with Microsoft, stay employed, life is good!

No need to reply or argue about this post, if you are an IT pro, in
the back of your mind, you know damm well this is the truth and Linux
will just waste your time, put you back in your professional carreer
and in the worst case scenario get you unemployed. Then, you will go
back and join the Microsoft side, but as a newbie ;-)

Have a nice day
--------------------------------------------------------------------

if it looks like a troll, sounds like a troll and smells like a troll...
then it is a troll

                                 --------------------------
                        /|  /|  |                          |
                        ||__||  |       Please don't       |
                       /   O O\__           feed           |
                      /          \       the trolls        |
                     /      \     \                        |
                    /   _    \     \ ----------------------
                   /    |\____\     \     ||
                  /     | | | |\____/     ||
                 /       \|_|_|/   |    __||
                /  /  \            |____| ||
               /   |   | /|        |      --|
               |   |   |//         |____  --|
        * _    |  |_|_|_|          |     \-/
     *-- _--\ _ \     //           |
       /  _     \\ _ //   |        /
     *  /   \_ /- | -     |       |
       *      ___ c_c_c_C/ \C_c_c_c____________

--
Paul Cooke
  Registered Linux user 273897 Machine registration number 156819
  Linux Counter: Home Page = http://www.veryComputer.com/

Nice post, you're moving from trolls to actual well-constructed articles.
Please continue this trend.

Quote:> This morning I read this article on the MS website
> (http://microsoft.com/sbserver/evaluation/compare/linux.asp), and I
> decided to write this post about my experiece with Windows and Linux.

Nothing like proof from an unbiased source, eh? Hey, I've got a bunch of
articles from theregister.co.uk for you to read. They're unbiased as well
(tee hee).

Quote:> for instance, my users absolutely love Microsoft Office, and me too BTW.
> Many times I've shown Red Hat Linux to some of our staff on a couple of
> Linux pilot computers, and they have been impressed

I hate Office and all the integrated "productivity" applications like it.
That includes StarOffice, OpenOffice, Corel Office and what have you. One
thing I /do/ recognize though, is that they all do pretty much the same
things. I have yet to encounter a Office alternative nay-sayer who can
provide one single solitary feature that every user needs but only MS Office
has. Don't say "MS Office file format compatibility," that hasn't a thing to
do with being productive.

[snip]

Quote:> So basically, my test users have told me: thank you but no thank you -- we
> want our Windows!

Not surprising, those people probably distrust the computers, so adapting to
any change is seen as extra work, and is viewed negatively. I experienced
the same thing when my users switched from Lotus "Office" to MS Office, but
they all managed to make the transition. I work for the town of Thomaston
CT, who/where do you work?

Quote:> One thing each and every of my test pilot Linux users have mentioned
> is the "horrible fonts" specially on word processors and web browsers.

Describe exactly what you mean by "horrible fonts." I use Konqueror, Galeon
and Netscape 6.2 on Linux; I can't tell the difference between the font
rendering on those and IE/Netscape on Windows. One of these days I'm going
to rig up a visual test and see who can guess which snapshot is from what
operating system. That's probably the only way I'm going to be able to make
my point abundantly clear.

[snipped: Linux GUIs don't match quality of XP or MacOS 10]

I must admit that the Aqua interface is pretty snazzy. XP, at its default,
is an eyesore at best. I usually use the Windows 2000 "theme" in XP so I
don't have a seizure. KDE is no worse than any of these.

Quote:> On the OS stability side, I believe that many hard-core Linux users
> may not have spent a long time testing and using the latest breed of
> Windows OS software such as Windows XP Professional and Windows 2000
> both Professional (client) and Advanced Server (server).

Yeah yeah, it's always the newest version that's /so/ much better than the
last. I've heard that one before, and I've yet to see a major improvement
over the previous version.

Quote:> I believe the idea that most Linux users have about Windows being unstable
> is about the old Windows 9x and Me versions which were simply horrible in
> the stability and robustness department.

This is probably the case, and I'm glad to see that we're all finally
admitting it now. Just for the sake of accuracy, when one is careful and
only runs a few proven software apps, Windows 9x can be made fairly
reliable, (as long as it doesn't remain running for days on end.) But, I
think you're forgetting how terrible NT was before SP4. I mean, it was
*really* awful on the desktop, and possessed by an evil entity when running
as a server. Windows 2000 was no great improvement over NT 4 SP6a, and also
required 4 times the resources. XP needs twice the resources that 2000
needs, and is less reliable.

[snip]

Quote:> And the fully-patched Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000 server I support are
> incredibly stable, they go for months without roboots -- in fact, we only
> reboot them when we do scheduled maintenance.

My NT 4 servers occasionally experience problems with logon services,
usually about once every few months. No big deal. My Linux servers
experience zero problems, and don't need to be rebooted unless I upgrade the
kernel, which has only happened once in two years. Considering that your
company paid thousands more for a solution with more support needs... Well,
you get the idea.

Quote:> In the TCO (cost of ownership) deparment, all companies I've worked
> with as well as my consulting clients, are not too concerned at all
> about paying for software licenses.

If that is the case, how come you aren't running Windows XP on every machine
along with Office XP? Money is no object, right?

[snip]

Quote:> So that's my post. Please don't send me any flame mail or insult me
> for simply expresing my opinion.

You can't complain, I was nice.

--
Bones

Error Log for Thu, 11 Jul 2002 14:20:17 -0400: segfault in module "." -
dump details are as follows...

Quote:> Blah, if you were worth a bare gram of IT gold, you would understand
> fully that users dont know what they want, dont know what they need, and
> are entirely unqualified to make ANY decision about their computers at
> ALL, period, case closed.

> You want them using linux?  Shove it down their throats.

Sad, but true.

Ultimately, it comes down to the decision makers in a company what the
end-users will use on their desk, and oftentimes their main concerns are
far from "ease of use".  More like "ease on budget" and "ease on
functionality" and "ease on being as productive as possible".

Thing is, Linux has all of these covered.

--
rapskat -   2:35pm  up 7 days,  3:54,  3 users,  load average: 0.21, 0.09, 0.02
156 processes: 152 sleeping, 3 running, 1 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states:  5.6% user,  1.6% system,  0.0% nice,  2.4% idle
drop the hot to mail me

The nearest way to glory is to strive to be what you wish to be, thought to be. -- Socrates.

That's a very good looking clean system.  Which distro you
running??

<snip anti-Linux troll>

Just in case anyone thinks this is true, here is a post from the real
world, from the webmasters newsgroup:

"More and more large companies are migrating to Linux; IBM is putting a
very
solid push on Linux-based server products. I recently migrated a
medium-sized company from a Windows web solution (in ASP with a SQL
backend)
to Linux, using PHP and MySQL, as that was appropriate for what they
wanted
to do."

This is what is happening in the Real World, not the world Mr. Padron
lives in.  :)