A few years ago a Linux consortium for embedded and electronic devices was started with 50 or so of the MAJOR (i.e. LARGEST) companies.

We’re started to see that NOW.

HA HA HA ….. MS may have the Desktop territory for now, but they lost the (1) server, (2) embedded, and (3) personal electronics markets!

It happens at that moment. As I am typeing my document, I look up and find my imput appearing in a text box of the new window that happened to come up when I glanced away from the screen for a moment. No, it is not a spyware popup window in this case, it is one of the many printer, camera, or other hardware control centers. I close out of the latest opoup Window and then begin work again, and BAM!, another control center opens up.

After I spend the next hour of so tweaking Windows to keep all this desktop spam from appearing. Finally, success. The computer is still running very slow, so I run a Lavasoft. Lavasoft goes in and finds a bunch of cookies and I delete them. Now, the computer is still running slowly, but at least I stopped the desktop spam. I reboot the computer, and everything is fine except the computer is only half as fast as a Linux equivilent.

About a week or so later, I have to go back to the same place and redo the adjustments simply because the owner of the computer changed some mode of operation. If I pop in my jump drive into the USB port, I get yet another pop up window. I find the sluggishness, the hardware vendor desktop SPAM and other such things axtremely annoying. I believe that most computer users also do not like it, but they know of no other alternative, so they continue putting up with it because they either have to run some specific Winblows only program that is required for their business, or they keep subscribing to the myth that Linux is hard to use.

Now when I go to someone’s hous that uses Linux (usually to setup new hardawre), I turn on the computer, and about a couple of minutes later KDE is up and running. I can browse the web, pull in pictures from their camera, or even plug in my jump drive and use it with ease. The only thing that happens when I plug in my jumpdrive is that a new icon shows up on the desktop. I can either ignore the icon or I can open it and be taken to the root directory that is stored on the jumpdrive. If I want to retrieve a webpage, all I have to do is open a webbrowser and type in or select an URL. As far as adding a new device, I just download a precompiled driver, or in worst case scenario, I have to download, compile, and intall the driver. Once things are set up, Linux usually does not require much maintenance after that. With Linux, I can watch a Quicktime video without having a Qicktime icon that stays in my system tray. I can open files of many different formats without being indunated with banner screens of programs used to work with those specific file formats. Microsoft, and companies that write Microsoft compatable programs should look to Linux for many examples of ease of use. There is very little desktop spam to deal with, and computing is a pleasure.

In XP, I find that all the popup Windows that supposedly “guides” the user to be distracting and frustrating. Most of my clients find the same thing. When I sit in front of a computer that is running a Microsoft OS, I wonder where I’m being dragged today and do I really want to go there.

All Microsoft would achieve is improving Linux for all… although given MS’s previous design decisions (see Internet Explorer) I would have a good look at what they had done before deciding to use Micrix in anger.

I speak English.
Navajo is not intuitive to me.

People that grew up speaking Navajo
might say the same thing about English.

I’ve been using Linux for 11 years.
MS Windows is not as intuitive for me.

For example with command line the [tab][tab] is broken,
“ls” doesn’t work, and where is the synaptic package manager?
The MS Windows’ window manager is fixed and primative.
Where is CUPS for printing?
With Windows you have to dig around for a drivers disk.

Thanks for giving them the idea. Now they can use it against us.

Here is a Linspire machine.

http://www.jasp.com/product_info.php/products_id/81?osCsid=2e6f9efdb4d56ba348a1d0d9afd387b3

Keep searching. :^)

Did you read Lincoln Durey’s open letter “Dear laptop vendor” last year? Do a google search. In fact I was lucky – I did actually buy two “windows-free” laptops 18 months ago, from two different places. I checked again yesterday, and now *neither* of them gives the option of a laptop machine without XP.

So while I agree 200% with your original statement of the problem, I don’t get your solution at all.

When I first read the title in my GoogleNews alerts I know I had read something similar from Wired. Can’t remember the title quite, so I googled.

The above is a ficticious memo from the future sent by (possible) future MS employee Linus Trovalds asking Bill to get Steve off his back. While he’s trying to develop “WinX”

Lemi4 (http://lemi4.blogdrive.com)
[just to clarify that I'm not an Anonymous Coward]

Simply put, people don’t want to be bothered putting a little extra effort into getting out of a bad situation, so they make excuses and chose to deal with the same problems over and over again..
~
Linux Mepis User

It allows many “windows” applications to work on linux without the MS bullshit.

It’s not perfect and it doesn’t work for everything but it’s under constant improvement.
See what works with wine:
http://appdb.winehq.org/

Better yet, buy the machine and install the OS yourself.
Or ask a knowledgeable friend to do it.

Buying “package deals” means you pay for all the crap-ware that company has “special deals” with. You pay for it anyway, so just ask for the version without any OS and pay less.
If they won’t do it shop elsewhere.

Try computer shops that do repair nearby.
They can usually do custom jobs as per your specifications.

What windows did was allow the average Joe to run a computer. It didn’t teach him or allow him to learn what it took to deal with the problems. After all this time of dealing with the OS I have finally learned that it is trash when it comes to dealing with malware. There is always another new one just around the corner. No matter how knowledgable you are with the OS, it is something you will deal with as long as you run windows.

Had I spent as much time learning Linux (instead of learning it at this late a date) I would be far ahead in having solutions to driver installs that go wrong. Instead, I am learning all over again. I am not running a dual boot. It does me little good in the terms of learning if I can run back to the cripple to do something but can not do it where I intend to be. Therefore Linux is all I will run till I learn it and most likely after I learn it. In the meantime I know there will be growing pains as I strive to learn a new OS. The key here is learning it. To do so, I have to use it day in and day out and face and solve those problems that come up as a result of what I wish to do with my computer. It is not a matter of geeks, it is a matter of time invested to learn what it is you wish to learn.

I learned DOS on my own. I learned Word on my own. I have no doubt in the end I will learn Linux on my own. If you throw up your hands and say you can’t do it, then you are right, you can’t. I don’t recognise that I can’t as a limiting factor in what I wish to learn.

They actually did do the world one favor. By creating Windows, they made PC’s both friendlier and easier to use. This is a big part of why there is now a PC in nearly every home.

I’ve tried to get to know Linux a few times, and would love to switch to it permanently some day. My most recent foray was with Ubuntu which I thought was well put together. I’m a fan of installs that only give the basic tools needed and not a ton of useless extra junk. The two main problems with Linux that will forever keep it from ever being as mainstream as Windows though is it’s usability, and available software. Want to play games? Have to stick with Windows. Plus Linux has a habit of making the simplest things in Windows really hard to do. You should never have to use a command line for anything, and everything should just work. Otherwise what is the point of a GUI? Sure, for geeks it’s not an issue, but for you average joe consumer it’s a big one. No one wants to be frustrated all the time just trying to do simple tasks, like install graphic drivers.

It all starts out with this, “You can click here” to get the computer to do something. It ends with you wishing you could do this or that but the software won’t allow it. Since it is propritority software, you aren’t allow to make the changes. So If I don’t want Internet Explorer, the courts have said I don’t have to have it, same with media player. I can chose another and have the ability to uninstall that item. If I don’t like the file browser, I am not so lucky as there has been no method setup to disable it or remove it. A shame actually that there isn’t. If you could replace the file browser with a sutitable substitute then there would be far less security issues with the Windoze line.

Fortunately you have that choice with linux. Not only do you have a choice, you have a choice of flavors. Red Hat, Suse, Ubuntu, are all different flavors of linux with different file structures when it comes to names and the like. That in itself goes a long way toward preventing a virus writer from attaching his pet to your computer.

When win95 came out, there were all sorts of companines offering memory management, compression, utilities, and many other programs that worked with the Windoze OS. Now those companies for the most part are gone and the services they offered are gone with them. Microsucks swallowed the most of them. Incorporating less than the very best that the competive companies offered in program utilities.

There are still several of the old timer names around. They have been engulfed in mergers and takeovers and the result is name only without solid product support. Norton is a good example of a product, once the genuis of software in fixing problems that has depended on its name to get it through. The percentages of those that say it is a great product have dropped over the years. It is but a shell of its former self in the sense that what it delivers as product no longer exceeds the users expectations, rather it barely meets them.

Should Microsucks engulf the Linux line in the same way, you will face some poor choices. It certainly won’t be good for the consumer. Legally running Windoze costs you an arm and a leg for the software and protections necessary to secure the OS. Running Linux isn’t in the same catagory. It was one of the drivers that directed me towards Linux in the end. Free firewall, free anti-virus, free rootkit; imagine all of them without charge or spyware. I can’t say I have really needed the protection, some how spyware just doesn’t take to Linux. Isn’t that nice? No spyware worries.

Many countries are seeing the same things. They are comparing expenses it takes to run Microsucks products on an annual basis for their government and as a results are switching to less expensive alternatives. Microsucks has tried to put the best face on it, claiming that the hidden costs and stability in Linux have become an issue. Governments are seeking alternative ways to the expensive ways of the Windoze product line.