Comment Re:How is Windows easier to use than Linux? (Score 1) 1079
Umm, mplayer plays dvds just fine out of the box, and noone I know has had a problem with it if they just read the docs first.
Users don't and shouldn't have to read pages of docs to watch a movie, and they don't have to on other systems, at least on OS X. I don't use Windows but I assume that is the case there too.
Second, if you know how to modify byte codes to get a non standard apm working, well, you should know why you
have to recompile your kernel.
I think the point here is that even if one knows how to modify byte codes and recompile the kernel, the vast majority of users don't want to know and do this. The difference is working on the computer or getting work (or entertainment) done with the computer.
And about power management, get the blasted hardware people sticking to the standards and you won't have this problem, dell and gateway and sony use different versions of the standards and each laptop they tweak small things here and there. It's insane!
Again I think you miss the point. Yes there are reasons it can be difficult to make Linux do these things that other OS's are doing out of the box. But the vast majority of users don't want to hear reasons, they want things to work. Until those reasons are fixed somewhere down the line my users don't want to hear it.
A case in point. We had a project where we wanted to move a external firewire drive between two machines, one Linux and one Mac OS X. The drive plugged in to the OS X machine and worked in less than a minute. It took many hours of getting the firewire card drivers to install on the Linux box, requiring a re-compile of the kernel before it would work. Yes I know the arguement that running a Mac is more expensive to purchase but the guy who had to take care of the Linux box side of the project spent the better part of a days time to get it to work and he was being paid about $45/hour. I get paid less and it took me a minute to get my side of the project done. Now mulitply that by many machines and remember that while he is tinkering with those machines I'm getting all kinds of work done on other projects too.
Sorry if I tangented a little here but I am dealing with the decision of what to replace old Solaris machines with in our small office setting and more and more I don't see Linux as a friendly enough choice on the desktop or even in the back room for many reasons.
Users don't and shouldn't have to read pages of docs to watch a movie, and they don't have to on other systems, at least on OS X. I don't use Windows but I assume that is the case there too.
Second, if you know how to modify byte codes to get a non standard apm working, well, you should know why you
have to recompile your kernel.
I think the point here is that even if one knows how to modify byte codes and recompile the kernel, the vast majority of users don't want to know and do this. The difference is working on the computer or getting work (or entertainment) done with the computer.
And about power management, get the blasted hardware people sticking to the standards and you won't have this problem, dell and gateway and sony use different versions of the standards and each laptop they tweak small things here and there. It's insane!
Again I think you miss the point. Yes there are reasons it can be difficult to make Linux do these things that other OS's are doing out of the box. But the vast majority of users don't want to hear reasons, they want things to work. Until those reasons are fixed somewhere down the line my users don't want to hear it.
A case in point. We had a project where we wanted to move a external firewire drive between two machines, one Linux and one Mac OS X. The drive plugged in to the OS X machine and worked in less than a minute. It took many hours of getting the firewire card drivers to install on the Linux box, requiring a re-compile of the kernel before it would work. Yes I know the arguement that running a Mac is more expensive to purchase but the guy who had to take care of the Linux box side of the project spent the better part of a days time to get it to work and he was being paid about $45/hour. I get paid less and it took me a minute to get my side of the project done. Now mulitply that by many machines and remember that while he is tinkering with those machines I'm getting all kinds of work done on other projects too.
Sorry if I tangented a little here but I am dealing with the decision of what to replace old Solaris machines with in our small office setting and more and more I don't see Linux as a friendly enough choice on the desktop or even in the back room for many reasons.
