I find that people who compare Linux to Windows and prefer Windows tend not to compare apples to apples. They'll compare the worst case of Linux with the best case of Windows. However, when you run into problems on a Windows box, I don't see it as a lot simpler than Linux. In Windows, you still end up searching online for a solution and then often go digging through the registry, installing this or uninstalling that, and yes running stuff on the command-line. The real issue is re-learning the same skills that people had to learn when they began using Windows, and there is some denial that they never had to do that.

I think Windows is a lot more troublesome than Linux. Take installing a printer for example. In Windows, you install a printer driver that you have on disk or that you've found by scouring the Internet and then once you've installed that, you do the plug-and-play thing. In Linux, you just do the plug-and-play. That's looking at each system at their best. It's not always that simple on Linux, but then it's not always that simple on Windows either.

There are a lot of problems with Windows that people are conveniently blind to. Like the fact that you have to have a good virus checker running at all times AND a spyware checker, and these cost you about $50 a year. After using Linux for a couple of years, my eyes are opened to the highway robbery that is. Then there is the very onerous validation and activation system put in place by Microsoft that can make it difficult if you need to reinstall your legally purchased Windows operating system or Microsoft Office. People never seem to have the original Office disks around. Then there is the gradual Windows slowdown that happens over six months to a year. Defragging helps (which incidentally you don't have to do in Linux), CCleaner helps a little more, but there doesn't seem to be anything that can restore Windows to the speed it was at when you first installed it or bought the computer. And again, there is the problem of re-activating programs should you decide to reinstall the OS. With Linux, reinstalling the OS and applications from scratch is a 30 minute process. I haven't even gotten into the issue of updates. Windows is very high maintenance. I'm often unsure which of us is the user.

I'm done with that ****. I switched to Ubuntu a couple of years ago, and I haven't run into any problems that I feel are worse than dealing with Windows every day. My Dad is in his 70's, and after he lost his hard drive to a virus - while he was running a fully updated virus program - he got so fed up that he had me install Ubuntu on his computer. My father is a very conservative Mormon who doesn't like new things, and he loves Ubuntu, though admittedly there was a learning curve.

Sorry for the rant, but I feel better now.

I agree that for the type of person who does wordprocessing, surfing the web, play some music, i.e. the typical 'granny/grandad' situation Ubuntu/Suse can work pretty well, maybe with some help installing it. The trouble I see is with someone who wants a little more than that, yet isn't a sysadmin/programmer and doesn't want to be one. For example decided I wanted to encrypt my harddisk partitions on my Ubuntu Hardy notebook. The Ubuntu documantation has eight (!) different how-to's, each disagreeing with the other or incomplete. They require you to do some studying (LUKS/dm-crypt/truecrypt/, usbkey or not, whole disk or only certain partitions, partitioning, mounting). Now I am ok with that but I can imagine many will just give up.

My Grandfather converted to Linux specifically because of the command line - this is a guy with next to no computer experience. The main reason for this being he just couldn't cope with using a mouse. It isn't fair to assume that GUI's are easier to learn initially as most people are forced into a certain mindset. I find GUI's handy for a lot of things, however command lines do have their advantages.

Pah, thats nothing. I have used linux since the 60s, when we had to count the bits out by hand!

Godsdammit! Could you please stop this nonsense?!

The very first announcement of Linux (which wasn't named as such yet) was on august 25, 1991 on the Usenet newsgroup comp.os.minix. Here's the post by Linus himself:

From: torvalds@klaava.Helsinki.FI (Linus Benedict Torvalds)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: What would you like to see most in minix?
Summary: small poll for my new operating system
Message-ID: <1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI>
Date: 25 Aug 91 20:57:08 GMT
Organization: University of Helsinki


Hello everybody out there using minix -

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and
professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones. This has been brewing
since april, and is starting to get ready. I'd like any feedback on
things people like/dislike in minix, as my OS resembles it somewhat
(same physical layout of the file-system (due to practical reasons)
among other things).

I've currently ported bash(1.08) and gcc(1.40), and things seem to work.
This implies that I'll get something practical within a few months, and
I'd like to know what features most people would want. Any suggestions
are welcome, but I won't promise I'll implement them :-)

Linus (torvalds@kruuna.helsinki.fi)

PS. Yes - it's free of any minix code, and it has a multi-threaded fs.
It is NOT protable (uses 386 task switching etc), and it probably never
will support anything other than AT-harddisks, as that's all I have :-(.

There was no Linux before that (and arguably there was no Linux at that moment either, as it was meant to be a free version of minix, but this post is generally recognized as the "birth" of Linux).

It's a good thing Linux never became "big and professional like gnu", eh?

What this also learns us is that, like any self-respecting nerd, Linus was still tapping away behind his monitor at eleven at night (Helsinki is two hours ahead of GMT).

Ooops... Sorry, I meant to say 90s.... When you get old, the years sorta run together! :-) To give you some idea of when I started with Linux, I had one of the very first distros from Yggdrasil. Of course, I WAS a Unix user back in the 80s (anyone got a problem with that?).

Gary Walborn
gwalborn@gmail.com

well i did a countertop install for a guy that wrote some of the early cobol code...or so he swore...had to be in his 70s

It's "UNIX". (har-dee-har-har)

But you beat me on the distros. Of course, the first distro I really used was S.u.S.E. 5.3 (bundled with Applix Office as "Linux Office Suite 99"). And yes, back then SuSE still had dots.

Prior to that, all my productivity stuff was done on OS/2.

i just love it whene people one up each other...or atleast try....just kidding...anyone here ever sell steaks out of a cooler on the back of a truck...or better yet muck stables...or mix mud...by hand...because ive done some of that...had alot off odd jobs..every time my dad fired me i had to find a job...so in the last 19 years ive been a blacksmith,welder,busboy,waiter,,stonemason,brickm ason,helper,cook,alarm salesman......

Interestingly, I've done quite a lot of those things. None of them made me much money though.

Oh, and my dad never fired me. He never employed me either, so...