By Eric Laffoon
[ The opinions expressed by authors on Linux Today are their
own. They speak only for themselves and not for Linux Today.
]
I have to say this… no, I have to shout this!
I have read so many times in the press that Linux is “not ready
for prime time” Perhpas I should explain that in the early 90s
I got so tired of Windows crashing and costing me money in down
time I remarked to someone on Compuserve (back before I even knew
the internet existed) how bad it was. He suggested I try OS/2. I
was very happy for a while as I am self employed and thus rarely
touch Windows. Recently I made the switch to Linux and have really
loved it. I’ve been getting my friends to switch, and just recently
was thrown rudely back into a Windows kind of world.
One of my friends is not very computer savy and had an old
Pentium. I installed Linux on one of her drives and it worked well,
but it was a pain because of a proprietary motherboard with onboard
graphics and sound. We decided to upgrade her system and first on
the list was another motherboard and a faster processor. I swapped
it for her and Linux came up fine. We upgraded her system to the
new Mandrake 7.0 and it found her new sound card, video, etc just
great. Then we rebooted to Windows 98…
Imagine my surprise when it was totally messed up. I tried
booting it several times. Once it could not even find command.com!
I tried to load drivers onto it and it could not find the
CD-ROM! I thought the initialization files may have been a
problem so I tried to save a backup of the autoexec file… it
said the disk was full! That seemed more than a little strange
considering it was also telling me I had over 500 MB free!? Of
course it was also annoying that it would only go to 16 colors at
640×480. Not too long ago I helped my friend install a new video
card and I remember that it took well over a dozen cryptic dialogs
to finally get it to work… and up until it did I had no idea if
we were there or not.
I realize that those of you who use windows may think I’m just
ranting about your everyday life… but I am in utter stunned
shock. Could it really be this bad? I remember changing my
motherboard in OS/2 several times and this never happened. I
finally called the company I bought the motherboard from and told
them what was happening. They asked me if I had wiped the disk and
reinstalled Windows. Stunned I replied, “of course not”. I was told
that if that wasn’t done Windows would get totally confused with a
motherboard change.
Okay… excuse me… I understand that many people reload
Windows every couple months to keep it running right… defrag
disks… mind numming inane hardware install dialogs… and as
another friend of mine who hates computers in general says…
“Windows is designed for entry level receptionists… I hate those
stupid wizards asking me if I know what I want to do… I want to
get my work done and be left alone”.
So I know that Linux needs some expertise from time to time, but
it doesn’t compare to the kind of general daily grief that Windows
users somehow seem to take for granted. Linux help can
easily be found… but reloading your computer is a pain!
Bottom line, if Linux is not ready for prime time, what
is?!
I use Linux exclusively! Tonight I get to help my friend
re-install Windows… I guess it’s true… No good deed goes
unpunished. Not while Windows is on your computer… and don’t
forget to hide Linux on the reload… Ready for prime time? Linux
is more ready than Windows!!!
That’s my opinion.