IT Employment

A shame, perhaps, but true! There sre simply 'too many flavours'.

I have tried Linux...God, I have tried!! From SuSE 5.1 in 1999 right up to modern distros. I have not yet succeeded in shoving a CD in a new machine, running it up and within a morning having my OS and drivers up to date and installed, all my apps running and my system 100% compatible with every other machine I wish to communicate with.

Linux is just not compatible with itself, let alone anything else. We may knock Microshaft, but at least all the hardware and software manufacturers support it for the end user.

With Windows, when you add new hardware, insert the appropriate driver and job done....perhaps a Windows update or visit to the manufacturers site to get the very latest drivers, but not generally a major problem, even for a relative novice.

Linux always seems to require a Google trawl for the most simple things...read all the 'howtos', visit a dozen Linux forums, get told that this file or that file needs to be tweaked, changed or re-compiled or that this version of that driver only works with such and such a kernel. Reading much of the 'help' out there, it seems to me that you need be 'fluent' in Linux before you can do the simplest things. It really isn't for the novice! Microsoft Windows IS aimed at the novice...it has to be! The majority of computer users are blisfully unaware of what lies 'under the hood'. Criticise M$ all you like, but they DO insulate the average user from the realities!

I'm sorry, but I honestly don't think Linux will EVER become a mainstream 'major' OS...it has too far to go to become 'user friendly'. Having said that, it is an excellent 'alternative OS' for those who do want to bugger around tweaking and downloading pages of howtos and .tar files and recompiling kernels every five minutes.

Linux is to Windows, as homosexuality is to heterosexuality. It is an 'alternative' and one that is increasingly acceptable (to some) in todays crazy mixed up world, but it will never be 'major' sorry....I'll lay my next year's salary on it.

Linux is gaining more of a following in Europe. Europeans don't share the American attitude that "it's more fun to fix bugs than prevent them," and they are rapidly losing their patience with Grungeware. Look for Europe to create the standardization, industrial-grade infrastructure, and application library that you're missing. Personally I'd choose OS-X despite the obvious shortcomings. Those shortcomings are due to one single cause: not enough people use it. Somebody has to go first. The "alternative" will continue to become increasingly unbearable until one day life in America is as portrayed in "Dark Angel" without any need for the neutron bomb in low orbit.