Linked by David Adams on Wed 6th Aug 2008 15:32 UTC
After 10 years of supporting Linux, IBM continues to challenge Microsoft on multiple fronts and aims to push Linux even further into the enterprise. While IBM has competed and partnered with Microsoft over the last two decades, the Microsoft-free PC effort is perhaps its most direct assault yet. "The idea of Microsoft-free personal computing has been in the air for a while," Inna Kuznetsova, director of Linux at IBM, told InternetNews.com. "We're just partnering with Linux distribution vendors and hardware vendors to make it happen."
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Member since:
2005-07-08
You have rather good points, ok, but the fact is, however, that the common user you call "the common idiot user" doesn't know how to configure his Windows PC either... I should know as I've spent countless hours helping to use and configure the windows PCs belonging to customers, colleagues, friends, or friends of friends, just because they didn't know how to configure or use those things themselves.
As an example, there was a friend that had a very unstable Windows 98 PC (and lacked the install CD) and after many frustrating hours trying to repair Win98 we ended up installing Ubuntu for him. He was rather happy with Ubuntu - although admittedly needed lots of help first as it was a completely new thing to him. Well, he bought a new PC later and uses Windows XP now, but he still asks my advice rather often when needing to do or configure something more difficult with it. So not so big a difference in that regards between Ubuntu Linux or MS Windows.
It is more a matter of getting used to something, at work, at school etc., and what you have got with the PC when you bought it, what you were thought in your computer classes etc.
Granted, some things may still be needlessly difficult in Linux environment - and MS Windows is quite good in its usability - but there are also many things where Linux distributions are easier to administer and use than a Windows PC. So it all depends, and both systems have their pros and cons, also in their usability.
I don't think that using commandline is an absolute necessity when configuring, for example, the newest Ubuntu? Although, I agree that using and knowing commandline can help a lot when configuring Linux PCs. But that is also due to the nature of Linux, its flexibility etc: you can configure it to do almost anything. The systems: Linux distros and MS Windows, are different and have a bit different purposes and goals.
Edited 2008-08-11 17:36 UTC