Re: [Hampshire] Tesco to ship Linux PCs

> I don't think people without a clue really know what they are doing
> with a Mac, Windows or Linux.

I'd definitely agree with that.

So, faced with the alternatives of *using* a pre-installed copy of
Windows, or *installing* a copy of Linux, they see Windows as easier
(because they're doing completely different things); add that to the
enormous wad of cash that the world's biggest company has spent telling
people that Windows is easy, and that's what many people believe.

Get them to install their own copy of Windows, and it's a completely
different story...

> I don't think that any of them are
> that easy.

Depends what you're doing. Last night, I sat two neophytes in front of a
computer. They were very comfortable using it, and got everything done
they expected. They mentioned that Windows was running very smoothly on
this particular machine - and were very surprised when I told them it was
Fedora :-)

Using a web browser really isn't difficult. That's what most people want
computers for these days - and Linux does that every bit as easily as
Windows. Indeed, I've recommended that certain of my corporate customers
set up a "Frankie" machine running Linux for when their employees just
won't stay off those dodgy sites...

> People with a bit of an idea can struggle through with a Windows/Mac,
> I see lots of people using them very badly. We may have reached the point
> that Linux is no worse and that users with a bit of a clue could probably
> use a Linux machine just as well as a Windows machine.

I beg to differ; I think it's the ones with "a bit of a clue" that
struggle. Those that understand computers have no problem. Those that have
never learnt the Microsoft Way have no problem. It's those that can't get
their head around why there is no C: drive that run into difficulties...

> From my perspective being Linux
> makes the maintenance much easier for me, I'd hate to look after Windows
> boxes...!

I've done that professionally in the past. The tricky bit was to bite my
tongue about how they wouldn't have had to call me out if they hadn't
installed Windows, plugged a USB ADSL modem in, and then run everything
with administrative privileges...

> A lot depends on how the software comes out of the box. I think if you
> gave someone a naked machine, then the Mac would fare best, Linux
> could come second if you have a live disk.

Depends what you mean by "naked". I had a Mac customer a while back whose
machines just wouldn't play nicely with the Windows boxes. I fixed it in
the end - by going to the command line (which is how I fix most things).
It turns out that you can make certain decisions during installation that
have very far-reaching effects; these Macs had no graphical tools for
doing what needed to be done (a bit of dibbling with smb.conf), and the
Google searches I did implied that it wasn't going to be a simple matter
to add the tools in afterwards...

> Obviously the first
> thing I did was reinstall from my own media, but it was nice how they
> arrived.

IME, installation is the single biggest hurdle to Linux adoption; although
it's really pretty damn easy these days (certainly easier than a Windows
installation), most people won't do it. They'll stick to what came
pre-installed. This is the root of Microsoft's monopoly, and the reason
I'm so very pleased about this Tesco thang.

Vic.