--- snitsnat <snitilicious at tampabay.rr.com> wrote:
> Since I've never worked the hell out of a *nix box,
> I'm wondering if you're
> talking *that* great an advantage here --given the
> learning curve. W2k =
> one crash in the last 16 months.
Oooh, yes, at least for development. Ill-wrought programs can do violence to the system that you don't ordinarily see in production software. One time, I think with a W95 machine, I had a write-compile-test cycle that turned into write-compile-test-reboot. Even recently an XP machine couldn't seem to handle video and some serial port communication at the same time. The only thing I've seen bring down a Linux box was catastrophic hardware failure. Occaisionally a reboot is the quickest way to get out of some problem, though there's some machismo that makes this option distasteful.
> I just don't happen to "suffer"
> any consequences from
> using Windoze, not enough to take up my OpenBS
> project.
And frankly most people don't need server-grade reliability. Now a better argument for alternatives for civilians would be the mass of spyware etc. plaguing the MS world, though I'd be curious how well linux would stand up to that without minimally knowledgable users.
> For your average user who is only going to surf
> Titty Chat rooms,
> e-mail, and share digital cam pics is it worth it?
> As linux distros stand now?
What might make more sense would be some sort of stripped down version I think somebody was selling at Mallwart -- Lindows?
I suspect a lot of the barrier is people just getting used to a different system and different GUI, plus a lack of GUI standardization within linux. I stumble around a lot when I try to use an OSX machine.
Andy
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