ray said:
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 10:17:05 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
ray wrote:
On Sat, 13 Nov 2010 03:47:11 -0500, Stan Brown wrote:
On 12 Nov 2010 17:22:05 GMT, ray wrote:
On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 10:04:30 -0600, VanguardLH wrote:
[quoted text muted]
Uh huh, like users of an already familiar OS wouldn't have a
steep learning curve to be just as proficient in a new OS. Oh
yeah, suggesting a switch to another OS is oh so much more
production.
Should be no more difficult to switch to a new OS that to go to a
new version of MS.
I'm a big fan of (the idea of) Linux, but the above statement is
just silly. To take just two examples: Switching from XP to Win 7,
it's easy to find where to configure hardware settings. Switching
to another OS altogether, you'd have to learn that from scratch.
You'd also have to find applications to replace the ones you were
used to using.
Switching to Linux might make sense in the long term, but in the
short term it's significantly harder than just upgrading Windows.
I see you've never tried it. For anyone who can read, it's no big
deal.
Same for surgery, physics, mathematics, car mechanics, etc. So when
did you ever see a user or even an admin who had to start using a
brand new operating system that read all about it BEFORE they started
using it?
I don't quite see your point. It's certainly NOT necessary to read a
stack of manuals before you use Linux. The menus are a little different
- I expect people to be able to READ the labels - that's all it takes.
Unless they use very little of the OS except as a fancy app loader, they
DO have to get into administering their operating system. That
immediately takes them beyond the desktop GUI. Having the desktop
similar so users can start pointing and clicking only helps for app
loading, not with administration. The GUI and CLI tools needed to admin
Windows versus Linux are very different. For someone to become *as*
proficient in Windows as an administrator of that OS who had years to
become accustomed to that OS would take quite a LOT of reading to become
just as proficient in administering the new OS (Linux). If the user has
no qualms about learning a whole new OS (when getting past the pretty
desktop GUI) then suggesting a change is not a problem but there is
inertia involved both in training AND in changing software even if to
get *NIX equivalents, *if* available, of that software.
If you're just starting out using computers, it's an uphill battle to
learn the OS no matter which one you pick. If you've been using
multiple operating systems, switching to a different one on your
personal computer at home is also probably not a major suffering. But
someone that has only used one OS and used it for years to learn how to
use AND administer it effectively has another uphill battle in a steep
learning curve to switch to a completely unfamiliar OS.
Even sysadmins who have decades of experience with several operating
systems rarely get hired in a new job involving an OS with which they
have had absolutely no experience and are devoid of knowledge. It does
happen but the candidate has to show high flexibility in managing
multiple operating systems (as part of their employment history), fast
adaptability, willingness to put in extra effort, be highly self-
motivated, and exhibit the ability to learn very fast. Even then it is
still a lot of work for the new-hire to get up to speed so they can
actually be effective in their new job. I doubt the employer is going
to give a new-hire in a sysadmin position more than a couple weeks to
get up to speed. Now you're talking about users and them having to
switch to a whole new OS - and remember that the vast majority of users
of Windows or Linux are their OWN sysadmins. They have to do that job.
You aren't just suggesting a change of OS to a user. You are suggesting
a change in *administering* a completely unknown OS to that user. It
certainly didn't sound like the OP was some employee at a company who
would even have a choice as to which OS was on his workstation and who
had an entire helpdesk and IT department at his disposal to administer
his workstation. It certainly looked like the OP was doing the sysadmin
job himself of his one or few hosts, probably at home. Unless he has
multiple teens where each chose a specific OS on which to focus their
computer skills, he will be the one having to not just use the OS but do
the administration of it, too.
Typically I don't see a lot of users that are inclined to switch to a
different OS just because they are considering an upgrade for an OS that
they already know. They want something newer of what they already have
and already know. Some users do switch but if it were so easy then
Windows, Mac (pre-OS/X), and Linux would be bouncing around on lots of
users' hosts and the non-Windows operating systems would have a much
larger share of the home computer market - as well as software vendors
seeing all this blend of operating systems amongst their consumers and
be providing variants of their products that ran on all those operating
systems.
You also have to take in consideration that the software the user wants
to use may not be available on all the OS choices. Yes, it is rare that
users decide what tasks their software must perform and then check what
software solutions are available for each OS before choosing an OS. That
is, they buy the record player before buying the records. But once they
buy the record player, they start buying lots of records. To switch to
a CD player means they lose all that investment in records and not
everything they have on records is available on CDs. If they switch,
they have more investment in their time to restock their library with
what they can find for the new platform. As with records and CDs,
eventually users left the former and embraced the latter but it took
time and it wasn't cheap. Even if the platform were free (as in the
case of Linux - assuming you want absolutely no support and are doing it
all yourself), there is still the problem in migrating to software
variants that work on the new [free] platform.
Despite being free, there is still a lot of inertia to overcome when
switching to a new and unknown OS. A platform that is free is not
always a sufficient cause to change. Other expenses are involved. For
a home user, often there are software equivalents to the programs they
already use on their old OS but being only equivalent means more
learning for a different software product. Not a lot of end-user
software has variants for multiple operating systems. Business use has
a lot of other concerns some of which were only touched on here but
isn't relevant to the OP as presented in his post.
