Linux appeal?

[historyb]

I never use command line to get my scanner to work in Linux, never.

 

[Reformed Musings]

Can you imagine having to do this much command line work to use a scanner?!?

Brother Fred,

I can because I did (and still do) Windows maintenance and upgrades for my friends, family, and colleagues, as well as ran a series of IT shops for many years. This includes extensive registry repair, something far more tedious and potentially dangerous to the operating system than typing a few lines a command line.

Those Windows users that don't have friends like me who work for food pay outfits like Geek Squad hundreds of bucks for the privilege. To install a scanner, for this instance, Geek Squad charges $149 (see here). Makes a few minutes on the command line seem like a bargain. To rid insecure Windows boxes of virii and spyware (a problem foreign to the Linux community) starts at $299.99. For several hundred dollars a year, you can buy Windows utility software - e.g., Norton System Works, anti-virus, anti-spyware, disk defraggers, registry cleaners, et al (all foreign, BTW, to the Linux experience) - that will pretend to fix these issues for you. That is, until things get so bad that it's time to call the Geek Squad. I could relate true stories for hours about Windows disasters that I've fixed, and Mac ones that nobody could fix. Who says that you can't put a price on friendship?

I might also add that the legions of Vista adopters wished they had a simple command-line fix to their hardware not working anymore after leaving XP. Unfortunately for them, they had to wait for their masters in Redmond to get around to fixing the issues at their leisure. I will gladly work on XP, 2000, or even Win98 boxes for folks, but I won't touch Vista.

Neither Windows, Mac, or Linux is for everyone. But only one of the three is free, and "freedom tastes of reality."

 

[historyb]

Wow, I'm under charging at 30 bucks an hour for all that.

 

[Reformed Musings]

I'm sometimes working for mere peanuts...

 

[BJClark]

I know there are people that have figured out how to run everything Windows related in Linux, including things like Adobe Photoshop but I'm not sure how much extra time and energy is involved.

I met someone the other day who runs both Linux and Windows on his computer; He partitioned his drive in a way that he can run both. He mentioned some websites that one can down load comparable windows programs from..

Maybe these will be helpful

Linux Software [ IceWalkers.com ]

http://wiki.linuxquestions.org/wiki/Linux_software_equivalent_to_Windows_software

http://linux.softpedia.com/

Duel boot computers

http://www.reallylinux.com/docs/toptip4.shtml

I have another computer sitting out in the garage I've been considering changing to Linux and trying it out..just so I can see if I like it..

-----Added 12/13/2008 at 08:15:08 EST-----

One thing I've thought about, though, is dual-booting into it or even just using Windows for the things I really need it for. Seriously, though, for me the feature I can't live without is Roboform so i'm kind of stuck in Windows.

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