The Results Are In…

I received some great feedback on the article regarding whether or not a switch to another computing platform is a good move for those who can barely handle what they use now.

For the most part, it appears that we are all on the same page. Still some of the perspectives shared below are fascinating to me. The one that struck a demographic cord with me though had to be the response from the Dominican Republic! I simply love the international reach of this content channel!

Matt,

I have that “coolwebsearch” syndrome every day, since most of my customers software problems are malware/spyware/adware/viruses related…

I do pretty much the same things as you do (I guess…). And yes, just like you, down here in Dominican Rebublic, we live in a Windows World, where
(almost) no one ever heard of Mac or Linux…

I myself dislike Mac, so I am very partial. But I am a Linux Taliban (!!!)

However, for my customers (in the pc repair biz), I always keep them in winxp, because that’s what they want anyway, and that’s exactly what they know how to use.

When I started to be a Linux fan, I thought I could “convert” some customers… I have a small internet-café as well, and at first I had my PC’s running Ubuntu… But I could feel the customers were very uneasy about it, and some were loud about being discontent… So I dual.booted all my pc’s, and let customers boot in winxp…

Interestingly, when I have a person who has never (or rarely) seen a PC, but wants to do some internet, I boot her (or him) in Linux (Zenwalk Linux, these days…) and they don’t even realise that it is a different OS.

But as of me, I’ll never ever buy a Mac (I’ll use one if it is given to me, though !!!). Because I feel Apple products are elitists, expensive. I’ll never ever recommend Macs for my customers (well, since I am not trained to fix them, it would mean loosing business for me !!!).

However, if I see a customer with a potential, I will definitly install a dual.boot PC, with Linux and Windows…

Hasta luego,

M.

I like their approach. This Gnomie strives to keep their feet firmly planted in the reality of his client base. If they demand Windows, so be it. But the fact he is willing to allow people to dual boot is still good to hear.

Matt
I just finished reading another Lockergnome edition whereby someone was raving about Dapper Drake.The feedback on this beta version of the next Ubuntu was generally very positive, except one gentleman who was a Windows user. His complaints point to what you were saying about unlearning and learning curves. He said “why can’t installing software be as simple as Windows, where I just double click a setup icon or I download it and double click the download or even better yet where putting the CD/DVD in a drive it launches automatically? As a Windows user myself I could relate as I have Breezy Badger and installed it on my laptop to try. It would take me some time to figure out how to do what I can do without thought in Windows.

Learning to navigate the OS, install software, find software and learn how to download and install from the download etc. Not to mention another reviewer said he has Breezy Badger and couldn’t figure out how to just upgrade to Dapper Drake. Another reviewer told him how to do it but it was 4 steps and involved command line stuff with apt-get etc.As I used to program computers in Assembler, COBOL, and others on both IBM and RAND corporation machines (one having JCL for compiling, the other ECL), I am sure if I had the time and spent enough of it at learning what is necessary to do all the above things, I could eventually master Linux - I intend to spend more time this summer at it.

But for the average person who the IDIOTS GUIDE TO or DUMMIES books are aimed at or the average in other words windows user who is not a power user nor admin level skills, I can see they even would have unlearning to do. To sum it all up, I agree wholeheartedly with your thoughts on unlearning and learning curves!

Paul

I’ll tell you Paul, I have run in to situations that had me scrounging for the Idiot’s Guide To Dummies! Seriously though, learning curves can certainly prove to be a ‘headache creator’ for those doing the hand holding, that is for sure…

Having been one of those that did switch, and had my wife switch, I am well aware of the differences from the standpoint of a computer professional and from a person that has to answer, “Why isn’t my document printing?” To me, there are 3 types of users, novice users, power users, and power user wannabes. If your users are either novice or power users, I would say make the switch. Wannabes, you gotta love ‘em, keep us in business, but they should be kept on a Windows box as a guest with no connection to the outside world, so they can’t do too much damage. If there is one person that can be trained to start a print queue and where to look for any files downloaded from the Internet, the switch isn’t that hard. Gone are the days of file incompatibility. Office files on a Mac can be written to a jump drive and used on a PC, as can pictures, movies, and text files. iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie, and all the other i’s, while not heavy hitters, are leaps ahead of any “free” software!

Within a week or two, your biggest support issues will be getting movies to play, especially Windows media files. After that it’s all fun and games, well fun anyway.

I’m inclined to agree that getting media files to play on certain platforms can be a little more challenging than the ‘wannabes’ care to admit. Still, getting file compatibility to be a spot-on thing remains wishful thinking in some cases. Most file types are not a problem mind you, but audio and video media is generally the biggest culprit based my experiences.